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Book 




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Copyright^ . 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



MENTAL HARMONY 



By the Same Author 



Mental Harmony, Its Influence on Life 
Think Right for Health Success 



MENTAL HARMONY 



ITS INFLUENCE ON LIFE 



BY 

GRACE M; BROWN 

AUTHOR OF THINK RIGHT, ETC., 




) 



S 



NEW YORK 
EDWARD J. CLODE 

PUBLISHER 






COPYRIGHT, 1916 
BY EDWARD J. CLODE 



MAY 3 1916 

©CI.A428808 



FOREWORD 

The thought-way of love is sweet and true. 

Thereon we shall breathe only harmony and we shall 
sing the song oj life in all its fulness and in all 
its goodness. 

Thereon we shall speak only kindly and we shall per- 
ceive the beauty and attract the opulence oj the 
world. 

Thereon we shall act only courteously and we shall 
know the joy oj being alive. 

Harmony is the accurate balancing oj the constructive 
lije jorce. 

To think with Harmony is the sure method oj attract- 
ing to our part oj lije all the good oj the universe. 

To abide on Love's thought-way is the sure method oj 
thinking with harmony. 

And to abide on Love's thought-way we shall think lov- 
ingly oj all oj lijes manifestation. 

Verily the great necessity oj clean thinking is upon us. 

Thinking which will dissolve the accumulated trash oj 
pain and poverty and woe. 

Thinking which will bring the earth home into shining 
newness. 

Thinking which will manijest the new earth and the 
new heaven. 



vi FOREWORD 



Yes, we will hearken to the call oj the new time, we will 
make ourselves more worthy oj this dwelling-place 
oj the most high, which is just as high as we are 
capable oj being and which is always heightening 
to meet our strengthening. 

When we do the best we know and give the best we have, 
we are giving our finer and sweeter part to the 
world and oj course we cannot escape the return 
current jrom out the world; what does it matter 
whether or not we know where we are sending it 
or jrom whence it comes, the necessity creates the 
demand and the demand attracts its requirement, and 
when we serve the law through and by the thought- 
way oj love we serve in sweetness and jineness 
and jreeness. 

He who desires to serve the law, always finds love's 

thought-way. 
He who is pure in his heart thought always sees the 

divine vision. 
He who is chaste in his love always abides with his 

heart's treasure. 
Because the law is supremely just and justice is the 

joundation oj harmony. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Foreword v 

Practical Metaphysics 3 

Vibration 31 

Concentration 73 

Breathing 105 

Mind 135 

Self-Reliance 157 

The Idea 183 

Afterword 194 



PRACTICAL METAPHYSICS 



The whole of God's great goodness 

Is molded on one plan, 
And it all emerges glorified 

In the consciousness of man. 

And the broad constructive motive 
Which belongs in Mans own heart 

Must abide in its home center, 
Must be of him a part. 

For the truth is all-enfolding 

As life is broad and free. 
And the truth oj daily service 

Is God's life in you and me. 




MENTAL HARMONY 



PRACTICAL METAPHYSICS 

|0 you know this dear old planet 
is fairly quivering with a great 
wave of light that is sweeping over 
it? Call it what you like, words are nothing, 
but the fact is apparent to every man who 
has eyes to see and a heart to understand 
that the light of truth is at last breaking over 
a weary world. 

Dear, dear friends, no more sickness, no 
more sorrow, no more poverty — and do you 
realize that this wonderful truth is for you 
if only you will receive it, and will place 
no barrier between you and its fulfilment. 
You are to be master. You are to overcome 
your conditions and your conditions shall 
not overcome you. 



MENTAL HARMONY 



Now let us think about it — and will you 
be surprised when I tell you that many 
people are too lazy to think? It is so easy 
to let things go just as they are, and it cer- 
tainly requires some effort of the mind to 
enable a man to grasp the principles that 
exist as causes in human life. 

Beware of a rut; anything but that. Any 
instrument will wear out if you play on the 
same string all the time, and the most 
wonderful instrument ever conceived of — 
the human body — is no exception to the 
rule. 

Possibly you do not realize that your entire 
body is one grand instrument for thought. 
The brain of the objective mind is not the 
only brain you have. Do you know where 
the solar plexus is, the central sun of the 
organism? Of course you do. Well, there is 
the brain or instrument of the subjective 
mind just as much as the brain of the head 



PRACTICAL METAPHYSICS 



is the instrument of the objective mind. Do 
you wonder when we speak of what a serious 
thing it is to oppress the most vital part of 
your being, when it means sacrificing your 
soul development to a false idea of beauty? 

Beauty is important; it is something we 
should all strive to cultivate; but Beauty 
is freedom, Beauty is truth and harmony, 
and any departure from harmony is not 
beauty. 

All of the body must be free — must at 
times be entirely exposed to the air and 
the sunshine. Nature loves freedom. The 
forest tree must have air enough to breathe 
and room for its widening roots before it 
can come into its perfection of life. How 
much more important that the body shall 
have breathing room, and yet how we do 
torture and compress it. One brave man 
is fighting for freedom for the feet. Dear 
Father Kneipp, he knows we must breathe 



MENTAL HARMONY 



through our feet sometimes, if we do keep 
them in prison most of the time. 

Metaphysics; what different meanings the 
word has to different minds! How much 
depends upon our viewpoint! Let us take 
the broad view and realize that it relates to 
the measuring of all philosophy, and under- 
stand that the study of metaphysics relates 
to the art of harmonizing the physical as 
well as the spiritual man. 

To be sure, here we are in the midst of all 
kinds of theories, and osophies, isms, and 
creeds — schools which claim to represent 
the new thought, and yet which feel that 
they have a corner on the truth and a re- 
served seat in the front row. Now we are 
going to look at this new thought — which, 
by the way, isn't new at all — from the 
standpoint of a thinking individual. We 
know that if a thing is true, it must conform 
and harmonize with everything else that is 



PRACTICAL METAPHYSICS 



true, because only that which is truth is 
everlasting, and all else must fade away. 

Discrimination is the first round on the 
ladder, so we will adjust ourselves in this 
thought of life and light that is so beautiful 
to the eyes that are open, and soon we shall 
know for ourselves the way, the truth, and 
the life. 

We each have our own individual place in 
the universe, and our own way of traveling. 
"Owls do not know the eagles' path to the 
sun," but the same fundamental laws of life 
prevail in each and every one of us, and we 
can inspire and help each other, thereby 
helping ourselves, all along the way. 

Let us be practical, and in being prac- 
tical we will commence by simplifying things 
somewhat, and coming into an understand- 
ing of the realities of life. To begin with, 
life is meaningless unless we realize that we 
are a part of that which is. But with that 



8 MENTAL HARMONY 

recognition, not only of our own being, but 
of the law of Universal Unity as well, what 
a grand meaning all things instantly possess, 
and what possibilities of use open before us. 

There is the great point, use. That is the 
principle which determines all things. Every 
force that is constructive is useful; anything 
that is not useful will disintegrate, because 
the force of construction is not there — and 
every thought, word, and deed carries with it 
either a destructive or constructive vibration. 

Now in our contemplation of use and every- 
day practical metaphysics, let us take a 
glimpse of the physical man. We have had 
so much theory — let us affirm that the aris- 
tocracy of the twentieth century shall be 
distinguished by Health and Beauty of body, 
intelligence and harmony of mind and con- 
ditions, and then we will prove it — not 
only think about it, but solidify that 
thought into action. 



PRACTICAL METAPHYSICS 9 

It is no longer interesting to be an invalid. 
The day when people enjoyed poor health 
and were interesting objects of sympathy is 
past; and, by the way, do stop condoling 
with those who are manifesting physical 
inharmony — and don't go to the other ex- 
treme and tell a man he is not suffering 
when he knows he is. Teach people how 
to overcome — remove- — the obstacle; show 
your patient the way; and do treat him 
like a reasonable human being. Remember 
that each man is different; each mind re- 
quires a different chord, for it is attuned to 
a different key. ,The man who responds to 
the chord of G will never be moved if you 
strike the chord of D in dealing with him; 
so you see you must first reach your patient, 
become attuned to his vibrations, and when 
you are in harmony with him inspire him 
to overcome his inharmonious condition and 
be master of himself. 



10 MENTAL HARMONY 

No case is hopeless until the soul has left 
its abiding place for all time. Health — full, 
free, vigorous — is the demand, and what we 
demand, knowing it is ours by every law of 
nature, we shall certainly have. 

The day we are passing on this planet is 
but one of many days. Man never steps 
outside of universal life, but while he is on 
this planet he is using for the vehicle of his 
soul expression an instrument the superb 
mechanism of which should be comprehended 
and used instead of abused, as is too often 
the case. Now right here is the study of the 
law of use; we find a mode of thought 
whereby we are enabled to grasp the prin- 
ciples that exist as causes and effects in 
human life and apply them practically in 
our individual lives. 

Some people seem to imagine that they 
can break every law of the Creator and then, 
by their suggestion, avoid all the conse- 



PRACTICAL METAPHYSICS 1 1 

quences or inharmonious result of their vain 
attempt, for of course no one can break a 
law; he only attempts to do so. You might 
just exactly as well throw yourself in front 
of a moving car, and use your suggestion 
to stop the car or keep your body from 
being hurt if the car strikes you. It is 
what the old-fashioned churchman would call 
tempting Providence, and sometimes these 
students of the new thought forget to use 
their common sense in their enthusiasm. 

How really useful it would be if we stu- 
dents of metaphysics would always use that 
much neglected quality of common sense in 
our researches. Not long ago one of our 
leading and prominent teachers had an 
article in her journal on diet. In it the 
writer gave this thought, that a man can eat 
anything he pleases, — flesh of all kinds, 
boiled pork and cabbage, in fact, anything, — 
and then treat himself and it will not affect 



12 MENTAL HARMONY 

him. Something like the confessional. Kill 
your man if you want to; only get to the 
confessional as soon as possible afterwards, 
and you are perfectly safe. 

What I would like to know is, what is the 
use of filling your body with destructive 
vibrations and then spending your valuable 
time in overcoming them? Why not think, 
live, and act constructively all the time and 
use your force in a better way? 

Of course if a man wishes to make a char- 
nel house of his stomach, poison his system 
with the vibrations of fear which infill the 
stricken creatures whose bodies are his food, 
that is his privilege. But do not be sur- 
prised if disease on all planes attacks him 
while he is taking into his system those 
forces that attract disease. 

Don't think the study of diet has noth- 
ing to do with the study of metaphysics, for 
it really is of vital consequence. Every force 



PRACTICAL METAPHYSICS 13 

you take into your body, every breath you 
draw, partakes of one of two qualities, con- 
struction or destruction, love or fear. Every- 
thing you eat and drink, every thought, 
every action, builds you or disintegrates you. 
Do you not see that your food then is to be 
carefully chosen, that the chemistry of food 
corresponds closely to the spiritual alchemy, 
and that in knowing yourself and the laws 
of your being you find the perfect way? 

These teachers and students of truth who 
declare they are going to remain in their 
present bodies forever, must remember one 
law, and that is that like attracts like, and 
what belongs to them is all they can have. 
They can remain in the body just as long 
as they build it with vibrations which con- 
struct, but every vibration of fear which 
enters the organism in any way carries its 
disintegrating force. The law of the Lord 
is perfect, and only in perfect life and per- 



14 MENTAL HARMONY 

feet strength can we overcome the last 
enemy, which is Death. 

At one of our recent meetings the ques- 
tion of flesh eating came up, and one stu- 
dent said that she did not understand why 
man should not have dominion over every- 
thing; that she was in the habit of eating 
three square meals a day and eating every- 
thing but the dishes. Another student re- 
marked that she would rather eat the dishes 
than most of the stuff that was put before 
her. Now you see it is all lack of under- 
standing. We have spent several years in 
the study of the chemistry of foods, and 
before many weeks will give you a book on 
the subject full of recipes and ideas about 
food. 

For some housekeepers it is hard to real- 
ize that we can prepare three meals a day for 
three hundred and sixty-five days in the 
year with a different bill of fare each meal, 



PRACTICAL METAPHYSICS 15 

and never use any animal food, but it is 
true, and we will give you the book which 
will teach you to do the same just as soon 
as it is ready, which we hope will be this 
coming winter. We will show you how to 
make mince pies without meat, and plum 
puddings without suet. We believe in three 
square meals a day ourselves, but we believe 
in the constructive foods, and that the pre- 
paring of food is one of the most important 
acts in the world and the one that is the 
least understood. 

Ah! how we hunger for the fruit which is 
afar on the hills, and how indifferent we 
seem to that which is within our reach. Per- 
haps we are too indolent to grasp it. It is 
so easy to neglect the common daily duties 
of life and feel they are beneath our notice, 
when in their accomplishment lies the great 
secret — that to do the best we know how 
the work of to-day, leads us toward that 



16 MENTAL HARMONY 

work which we love and which is ours. No 
man is more blessed than he who has found 
his life's expression in the work that he loves. 

Indolence, physical and mental, is one of 
the great barriers to our becoming whole. 
It is a good deal of trouble to take proper 
care of the body, to take a breathing exercise 
and a little physical exercise after it. It is 
quite an effort to control the mind, and 
through that control become master of 
self and your conditions, but it's the sure 
way. Of course it is easier to declare 
you are well anyway. Theories are always 
easier than practical facts, but to-day we 
are talking about practical metaphysics — 
things that will prove, by the result, the 
truth in them. 

Let me give you an exercise that will 
interest you by proving to you how it will 
strengthen and build you physically and 
spiritually if you care to practise it. 



PRACTICAL METAPHYSICS 17 

After you have taken your morning bath, 
and absorbed from the water the life essence 
in it, lie down on your back on the floor, 
with hands and arms stretched downward. 
Then slowly raise the arms straight up in the 
air without bending the elbows until you 
touch the floor over your head. Take a 
deep breath each time you do it and place 
your mind upon your desire for Health and 
understanding or whatever may be the desire 
of your heart. It is a strengthening process 
to repeat the Lord's prayer as you inbreathe 
and raise the arms, and that prayer properly 
said and rightly understood contains the 
essence of one's heart's desire — "Lead us 
through temptation into light" — isn't it 
beautiful? That is the correct version, and 
what a consciousness of strength comes over 
us as we realize our prayers are answered and 
we see this light. Take this exercise three 
times every day — morning, noon, and just 



1 8 MENTAL HARMONY 

before retiring. You will soon find for your- 
self an inspiration that you knew not of. 

In taking any physical culture exercise 
remember that through the thought you in- 
breathe while taking it will come its results. 
It may give you love and understanding or 
it may give you mere brute force. We hear 
a great deal about physical culture these 
days, and a fine thing it is, too, but I have 
noticed that some of these magnificent giants 
who have acquired such marvelous muscle 
are too small around the waist — the solar 
plexus is not developed; too small around 
the head — the brain of the objective mind is 
not developed; and also that they have no 
endurance. Surely endurance is a proof of 
harmony. You must develop on all planes 
equally. The highly developed muscular 
system must have the strong mind and 
powerfully developed soul forces or it is not 
enduring. 



PRACTICAL METAPHYSICS 19 

Do let us be reasonable. To be sure, 
people who are weak on any plane are not 
reasonable. You can't talk philosophy to a 
man who is starving, or reason with him 
that his pain is delusion if he has a jumping 
toothache. Help him to overcome the con- 
dition of poverty and the delusion of pain, 
and then teach him to be reasonable so he 
won't get into such scrapes any more. 

One trouble is that people read too much 
and turn the thought within too seldom. 
They eat too much and do not exercise 
sufficiently, thus creating dyspepsia, both 
mental and physical. One very useful cure for 
such people is to inspire them to do something 
for somebody else; try to make them realize 
that therein lies the greatest happiness of life, 
and happiness is a constructive force. 

The great enemies of mankind are Fear 
and Medicine. Some one said, "Medicine, 
Knives, and Hatred," and possibly that is 



20 MENTAL HARMONY 

better expressed, and isn't it a cruel thing 
when we think of it — the awful devasta- 
tion caused by Hate? We know it is all 
ignorance. AH inharmony is the result of 
ignoring the law, but the time is near at hand 
when the reign of ignorance is past. Soon 
we will all come into realization of the law, 
and we will so vibrate in the law of love 
that we will love our fellow-man into under- 
standing. When we eliminate the qualities 
of hate and fear from our consciousness, 
medicine and knives will soon be memories, 
and you can rest assured of one thing — the 
man who knows himself will appreciate and 
take care of his body. 

It is so strange the idea people have of 
Infinite Intelligence. A letter came to-day 
from a student in New York. In it he said: 
"I have been an invalid from birth. Have 
I any right to demand health? Perhaps it 
is the will of God that I should be ill." Oh, 



PRACTICAL METAPHYSICS 21 

my dear brother, when the will of God is the 
law itself, and the law is all harmony and 
love! To be sure, all effect is from some 
cause, but all can be cured, and every con- 
dition that is not harmony can be brought 
into harmony. 

While we know that life on this planet 
is but a small part of the whole, we also 
know that the opportunity of to-day does 
not return. The only thing a man can lose 
is his opportunity, so he must live in that 
consciousness of present use. The greatest 
difficulty is in fastening the interest on the 
unseen. So many people live in the thought 
of wonderful pleasures and happiness of some 
future condition. We are in eternity now. 
To-day is all; there is no past and there is 
no future in reality. So we must make the 
highest and best use of the present moment, 
and the future "present moment" will be 
all right. 



22 MENTAL HARMONY 

The coming religion is one of optimism 
and love, success and health. One of the 
microbes which attracts the success microbe 
is cheerfulness. Do smile about things. If 
they don't please you, smile anyway, and 
your displeasure will be lessened. The one 
person I want to avoid is the man or woman 
who never laughs. He suggests to me all 
kinds of dreadfulness. Laughter is a disin- 
fectant; it casts out fear, and when fear is 
cast out disease and inharmony soon follow. 
Nothing is more uplifting or more conta- 
gious than a sweet, happy smile. 

The word " contagious " has so long been 
applied to disease that we forget good things 
can be contagious also. There is a reason why 
we prefer to associate with healthy, happy, 
successful people. Their harmony is infec- 
tious, just as surely as the inharmony of dis- 
ease or fear is infectious, because it is the 
fear, not the disease, that is contagious. I 



PRACTICAL METAPHYSICS 23 

wonder if you ever heard how la grippe be- 
came an epidemic. It is an interesting proof 
that it was the microbe of fear and not 
influenza that caused it. A telegram came 
from Russia telling about an acute form of 
influenza that had attacked the royal family, 
or, as it was expressed, had a grip on them. 
Within twenty-four hours there were a hun- 
dred cases of la grippe in New York alone. 
It soon became an epidemic, and until quite 
recently la grippe was quite the fashionable 
way of disintegration. 

It is a bad habit to think you must have 
every disease you hear about. Change the 
vibration of that habit and attract all the 
good things instead. You are master of 
yourself if you only realize it, and no intrud- 
ers can enter your castle unless you permit 
them; and you know it's much easier to 
keep bad tenants out than it is to evict them 
after they have once taken possession. Just 



24 MENTAL HARMONY 

be sure of yourself. You know the law. Be 
positive about it. You feel the power 
within; cultivate it, and you will soon cast 
out all fear. 

Let me tell you another secret. Be calm. 
The greatest growth is in the silence. The 
still, quiet strength is the enduring quality. 
It is possible to use so much force of will 
that you destroy instead of construct. The 
sun rays are our life, and yet sometimes they 
come with such powerful force that it means 
destruction. 

Spiritual light and knowledge, to be prac- 
tically applied, should be sought for in a 
calm, dignified manner, and tempered with 
common sense and reason at the same time; 
you don't want to seize just one thread and 
grip it with such force that every other 
thread is rendered useless. No; you want 
to polarize yourself and be temperate in all 
things. 



PRACTICAL METAPHYSICS 25 

Sometimes a man becomes such an extrem- 
ist in his search for truth that he becomes a 
gourmand in his esthetic taste, and quite for- 
gets that other people have rights: that 
means obscuring the very light he is seek- 
ing. You know we have to consider every- 
one who crosses our path and be considerate 
as well as forceful. We find the greatest 
clarifier of the spiritual atmosphere is un- 
selfishness. 

Knowledge of the finer forces of nature, 
or the occult philosophy, as it is commonly 
called, gives to man unlimited power — pro- 
viding of course he uses it unselfishly and 
according to the law, otherwise he soon 
loses his knowledge — power of overcoming 
pain; power of overcoming conditions. 

What is pain, anyway? It is the result 
of defective advance, uneven development, 
and monstrous growths. The body suffers 
when it develops monstrosities of any kind, 



26 MENTAL HARMONY 

and its suffering is the warning cry. You 
do not want to stop the pain until that 
which causes the pain is arrested in its de- 
velopment. Pain is friendly; it only remains 
long enough to warn you that something 
needs attention, and that there is inhar- 
mony within, and as soon as you right the 
condition and equalize once more, the pain 
leaves. 

All that is real and eternal is God and 
that which emanates from God, and God is 
all harmony and all truth. The real you exists 
as a part of that harmony. You have your 
being in the Supreme Being, and that part 
of you which is eternal and real can express 
no discord. All that seems discordant does 
not belong to you and must be cast out. 

Your physical body is just as much spirit 
as any part of you. It only differs in its 
rate of vibration, which corresponds with 
earth's vibration to enable you to manifest 



PRACTICAL METAPHYSICS 27 

upon the planet earth. The body is yours, 
a part of you, and expresses God as much 
as any part of you, consequently the body 
must be Infinite Life, substance, and Intelli- 
gence. 

Emanuel Swedenborg, who gave to the 
Occidental world its first lessons in practical 
metaphysics, and who revealed to the mod- 
ern school of thought the philosophy of 
vibration, teaches us the law of influx. He 
places these teachings on a scientific basis 
that will stand the test of time. 

According to his teaching, and according 
to the teachings of our own inner conscious- 
ness as well, the human organism is built 
up on true mathematical principles, as all 
truth must be, and every part of this organic 
structure corresponds with and is an expres- 
sion of interior principles. Now there is the 
keynote of practical healing through the 
power of thought. 



28 MENTAL HARMONY 

What a comfort it is that Truth is Infinite; 
that we are a part of it and one with it. No 
matter how we may distort it in our ig- 
noring of the law — it is always there. No 
matter how we may limit our capacity, it 
rests with each individual man to lay aside 
all barriers and come into the full, free, glori- 
ous light of the Truth. 



VIBRATION 



Life moves. 
Life is intelligent. 
Lije vibrates with love. 
When I think with Love, 
Behold, I am alive! 




VIBRATION 

HHERE comes a time in the evolution 
of every human being, when he longs 
1 for an insight into those things which 
seem to him mysterious, and when he feels 
that the one thing desirable is knowledge; 
not the knowledge that is found upon the 
bookshelves, but that understanding that can 
only be found in the warm corner of the 
heart. Soon he realizes that it is a sweet, 
plain, easy lesson, this lesson of truth, not 
at all mysterious, and when one comes into 
its understanding with the soul conscious- 
ness, rather than the thought of the mind, 
all this world becomes better and happier, for 
when you elevate yourself you raise all men 
with you. 

There has never been a time when the 
desire for truth was so pronounced as it is 



32 MENTAL HARMONY 

at present, and there are few subjects in 
the entire study of the higher law of greater 
importance than this subject of vibration, 
because the philosophy of vibration explains 
the manifestations of spirit, and most truth 
students realize that matter is an expression 
of spirit caused by vibration. 

Vibration is the fundamental principle of 
all form. Through vibration this great one 
substance is differentiated. 

Vibration is motion — forms of motion and 
numbers of motion. This stone at my feet 
has one rate and form of vibration, and this 
tree before me has another rate and form of 
vibration. The atoms of my body have one 
rate and form of vibration, and the atoms of 
my thought, which is my mind's action, have 
another form and rate of vibration, all based 
on exact mathematical law, adjusted to an 
exact nicety, and most perfectly poised ac- 
cording to mathematical law. 



VIBRATION 33 



All things in their basic principles resemble 
all other things. As it is on one plane, so 
it is on another plane, and you are perfectly 
safe in judging the unknown by the known, 
the invisible by the visible. As the anato- 
mist can picture the whole animal by a bone, 
so can the student of truth picture the whole 
universe by a knowledge of a part, if the part 
that he has is founded on fact. 

Not long ago a gentleman, in criticizing 
my work, said that I do not teach spiritual 
things. Now, let's see what are spiritual 
things. Where is the dividing line between 
material and spiritual things? Is it not 
within yourself? We are coming daily into 
a clearer understanding of the fact that there 
is no difference between what we call mate- 
rial and what we call spiritual substance. It 
is all the same. The dividing line is in our 
ability to perceive. If our vibration is slow 
and dense, naturally we can only perceive 



34 MENTAL HARMONY 

the slow and dense vibrations; as we raise 
our own vibrations we come into a clearer 
preception of the higher vibrations of the 
forces of nature. 

Did you ever think, in your study of nature 
and her laws, how many questions come 
into the mind in regard to this differentia- 
tion of spirit? If all is spirit, and all is the 
one substance, why is that lively, bustling 
fly such a different kind of spirit from this 
pencil in my hand, and why is this glass so 
different from the water within it, and if 
thoughts are things also and consequently 
spirit, why is my thought a different sub- 
stance from the brain, which is the instru- 
ment for the mind to act upon? Yes — 
there is no limit to the question — and all 
so easily answered and so easily compre- 
hended from the standpoint of vibration, so 
let us see if in a very few words we cannot 
give the fundamental principle of the law 



VIBRATION 35 



of vibration, and explain some of the methods 
of the action of the law. 

This philosophy of vibration which I am 
giving you belongs to no special school, be- 
cause it is the foundation of most of the 
schools of metaphysics. The trouble with 
the disciples of the so-called new thought is 
that their individual thought is so very new, 
they seem afraid to recognize how old their 
philosophy is — and having grasped one 
idea of truth, it seems such a marvelous 
thing that they not only want to patent it, 
but fail to analyze it, and see how beautifully 
it harmonizes with everything else that is 
true. 

The Universe is composed of atoms, and, 
as we have seen, all these atoms are spirit, 
one substance, one intelligence, one life, one 
universal mind. This great mind moves, 
and its motion produces an energy, a vibra- 
tion, by which, according to its form and 



36 MENTAL HARMONY 

rate, all spirit, all substance, all life is ob- 
jectified and differentiated into form. 

This vibration, then, is the thought or the 
mind action of an Infinite Intelligence; so 
from the tiniest blade of grass to the thought 
of the individual mind of man, which corres- 
ponds to and in reality is one with the In- 
finite Mind, all manifestation of spirit is the 
result of vibration. 

You see it is not difficult to comprehend; 
there is no mystery in it whatever; all you 
have to do is to think about it. Vibration 
is just what the literal meaning of the word 
implies, motion. Now we are taught by one 
of the greatest disciples of truth the world 
has ever received its messages from, that 
there are four modes of motion necessary 
for the manifestation of spirit into objective 
life in our solar system, and we are not 
speculating beyond our own realm. Well do 
we know that if we understand ourselves 



VIBRATION 37 



and the planet on which we are having our 
present experiences, we have the foundation 
for that knowledge which is necessary for 
our work and development in other realms 
and spheres of life. 

This great disciple of Truth tells us there 
are four modes, although myriads of rates 
of vibration, necessary for the manifesta- 
tion of spirit. The rates are lesser or greater, 
lower or higher, according to the Divine 
energy which is embodied in the form. Thus, 
in expressions of life which we call evil, the 
energy is so slow, so lacking, that the vibra- 
tion is low, and what we call evil — all kinds 
of disease and inharmony — results. 

The first form of motion is said to be 
straight, the second is circular, the third is 
spiral, and the fourth is called vortexian, 
which is the motion of the planets and a 
combination of all the others. The spiral 
motion is a combination of the circular and 



38 MENTAL HARMONY 

straight, and the circular is really only the 
continued straight, because a continued 
straight line would always return to its 
starting point. 

So little is known in the Occidental world 
about these different forms of vibration, 
and so few of the students of Truth consider 
its importance, that it is difficult to go into 
many details concerning it. As in so many 
questions where we are taking somebody 
else's teachings all kinds of theories come 
in, and some students say that the straight 
motion is the vibration of the minerals and 
rocks; that the spiral form, the motion of 
the cycles, is the vibration of the vegetable 
world; and the vortexian motion is the 
vibration of the planets and what corres- 
ponds to the planetary motion in man. 

I rather think we shall have to progress 
much farther in our study of esoteric ge- 
ometry before we know the forms of vibra- 



VIBRATION 39 



tion as applied to different manifestations of 
spirit, but our reasoning power shows us 
that all manifested form is the result of 
Divine Energy expressed in the law of 
vibration. 

The important part for us to realize is, 
that we as individuals are manifesting spirit 
according to our own rate of vibration, and 
we as individuals must stand responsible for 
our position in the Universe. Each atom 
which composes this body is an atom of 
spirit, and as we harmonize all these atoms 
of the body and raise their vibrations by 
attracting to them Divine energy, we express 
the perfect harmony of the whole. 

As the Universal mind's action results in 
manifested form, or what is called creation, 
and is the thought of God, so the mind's ac- 
tion of the individual manifests, creates, or 
produces a powerful substance composed of 
atoms which we call thought, and which is 



40 MENTAL HARMONY 

the most subtle and powerful of any sub- 
stance with which we have to deal; so you 
see the mind of a human being is creative, 
and under proper constructive training be- 
comes a vast power for good. Action of all 
kind is only solidified thought; it is the direct 
result of thought force or mind's action. 

The vibration of a human being is deter- 
mined by the constructive force with which 
he is infilled, and which is a part of himself. 
As long as there is even a small ray of con- 
structive force in a man he is a part of the 
Infinite Spirit and must in a degree vibrate 
with it — and isn't it a beautiful thought 
that it is the most difficult thing in the world 
for a man to eliminate the Divine spark and 
thereby destroy himself? Swedenborg tells 
us that as long as there is one atom of love, 
which is the great constructive principle, 
in a soul that it will be fanned into life by 
the angels; which means, of course, that it 



VIBRATION 41 



will attract its own, more of the love ele- 
ment from the Universe. 

God is love. Love is the constructive 
force, and every manifestation of spirit is 
the result of that cohesive power of the con- 
structive force of love, and vibration is the 
action, the motive power which produces 
that result. In itself it is nothing, but 
it is the method employed, the means to 
the end. 

Mere philosophy will never reveal the 
higher vibrations of life. The finer essences 
of nature are those that elude all philosophy 
and all language. The Intellect alone will 
never comprehend the Supreme Intelligence. 
If it could, human beings would never dispute 
over their conceptions of God. The dear, 
ignorant creatures would know that a man 
who quarrels, no matter how highly educated 
he is, is shutting himself away from God, try- 
ing to separate himself from that which he 



42 MENTAL HARMONY 

imagines he is defending and knows so much 
about. 

A man who really believes in God is one 
with God, a part of Him, infilled with Him, 
and God is love. Saying you believe in God 
does not make it so. Words are so cheap 
and meaningless sometimes. A man who 
believes in God takes Him so into his life 
that he becomes Love itself. He realizes 
that all men are a part of himself, and criti- 
cism and condemnation of his fellow-man is 
impossible. 

The only remedy for error and supersti- 
tion is knowledge. Error is a low vibration 
of light and totally unfits the soul for truth. 
All so-called sin is ignorance — ignoring the 
truth. How foolish to condemn a poor, ig- 
norant man for the crime he commits, when 
maybe you yourself are responsible for his 
actions. Ah! that is not a comforting 



VIBRATION 43 



thought, is it? But let us put our light of 
common sense on it and see if it isn't true. 

In the first place, we are all one," some of 
us manifestly in a lower vibration of light 
than others, but all one in the Divine In- 
telligence. You may be polished, and en- 
crusted with your intellectual pride, and 
may consider yourself incapable of any 
action but that of the highest virtue, and 
you probably are, according to your own 
understanding. But maybe you forget that 
your thought is a substance, and you may 
not hold it in the high vibration which your 
surroundings would imply. Possibly you 
consider yourself a little better than your 
fellow-man, and perhaps you are condemn- 
ing your brother or despising your sister 
because their standard of morality does not 
agree with yours. You might even have 
thoughts of envy and of how much better 
you could manage your neighbor's millions 



44 MENTAL HARMONY 

or your friend's talent than they can. Ah! 
my dear, what becomes of those thoughts? 
Surely they are not lost. Suppose some 
deluded soul who is too ignorant to protect 
himself, who is negative in his nature, is 
just in the mental attitude to receive those 
projected thought vibrations of yours. What 
happens? He puts into action the hate gen- 
erated by your thought. His action is your 
thought solidified. Your greater enlighten- 
ment teaches you repression of action. Your 
knowledge is not yet equal to control of the 
thought, but you can control the action. He 
is not yet wise enough to control the action. 
Do you see your responsibility? We are all 
one. It is the law. 

Be ye perfect, is the new commandment, 
the new religion. Aim high; you cannot 
aim too high, and every round you make in 
climbing the ladder of understanding leads 
you to a higher standard of perfection, — per- 



VIBRATION 45 



fection according to your understanding now, 
and perfection according to your greater 
understanding as you grow into the greater 
light. There are no limitations to the doc- 
trine of perfect love. "Perfect love casteth 
out fear/' and fear is the one and only enemy 
of mankind. 

The world is divided into two great classes, 
those who love and those who fear. Fear 
is such utter darkness, and yet there are 
those who know no light but what to you is 
darkness. "The highest vibration of light 
is darkness and the lowest vibration of light 
is darkness." Now how can I make this 
clear to you? We will turn on our search- 
light of reason and we shall soon see. 

I am giving you a lesson this afternoon 
which is quite clear to you. I can tell by 
the way you receive it that it is light to your 
mental vision. Do you suppose that dear 
young girl over there with her pretty fluffy 



46 MENTAL HARMONY 

head full of her beauty and her ribbons and 
her good times would comprehend this lesson 
which is light to you and me? No; to her 
it is darkness, and where she stands we have 
passed long ago. The light that surrounds 
her is darkness to you and me. When you 
are accustomed to a dark room the light of 
the sun is painful to the physical eye, and 
when you are in the low vibration, the dark- 
ness of error, the truth is painful to the 
mental vision and is darkness until you 
become accustomed to it. 

To-day many things are perfectly clear 
and light to you that even one short year 
ago were dark. You have come into the 
higher vibration of light, and the darkness of 
that higher vibration is now light to you. 

There are two ways of working; one is 
from within and the other is from without. 
The old idea was to work from without in, 
but the Esoteric law teaches to work from 



VIBRATION 47 



within out. When you work from within 
you work from love. The age of ruling men 
by fear has vanished and the time of rule 
by love has come, but the old ways and 
customs cling most tenaciously. 

If you would only realize how much easier 
things would come to you if you didn't try 
so painfully hard to get them! Try the plan 
of relaxing — give up — let go. Realize that 
you are not the most important thing in the 
world. If you should lay down your body 
to-day and go on to other spheres, the sun 
would rise just the same to-morrow morning, 
and the birds would sing just as sweetly. 
Your world is within you, and your entire 
concern is with yourself. Be ye perfect. 
Your responsibility ceases there. 

Do you know you cannot even conceive 
of a quality that you do not possess in some 
degree within yourself, and it rests with you 
whether you attract to yourself happiness 



48 MENTAL HARMONY 

or trouble, ease or disease. Many people 
go out of their way to look for trouble, and 
if that is the vibration of light to which 
they adjust themselves they can have all 
they want of it, for it is very easy to find. 
As that blessed old character, Eben Holden, 
says, "Ye can go to meetin' or ye can go 
fishin\" It all depends on the "I am" 
within you. 

Yes, my dear, as I said before, the only 
true way of acquiring knowledge and of 
developing the soul is to work from within 
out. You cannot reform people by using 
hatchets on them, and you cannot terrorize 
them into knowledge. If you will only raise 
your own vibrations you will do more to 
help humanity than in any other way. If 
you raise yourself, you raise all men to 
you. A truth that is truth in the year 
one is true in the year nineteen hundred 
and sixteen. 



VIBRATION 49 



There is one person who must not be de- 
luded, and that is yourself, and the strang- 
est thing to me is the way people love to 
delude themselves. Be true to yourself and 
you will be true to your fellow-man. 

You are an individual. No other person's 
experience can be the same as yours. In 
this great oneness is an infinite variety of 
experience and an infinite variety of individ- 
uals, and each individual attracts the ex- 
perience necessary for his evolution by exact 
mathematical law of vibration. You and 
you alone are responsible for your experi- 
ence, and you alone attract your conditions 
and surroundings. 

I know it seems severe, but did I not tell 
you that truth demands a high price? It 
is the most useless thing in the , world to 
think you are the victim of fate or circum- 
stance. Take your conditions as you find 
them and master them if they are not in 



50 MENTAL HARMONY 

harmony with yourself. If you haven't suf- 
ficient strength, pray for it, breathe for it, 
as I told you in our last lesson. Don't let 
anything master you. Are you, the micro- 
cosm of the universe, not greater than any 
other thing in the universe? 

What do you suppose is the greatest bar- 
rier to the development of the soul, — a bar- 
rier which is so subtle that it sometimes 
blinds and blunts the senses? It is selfish- 
ness. We want to be free, but we hold those 
we love in such bondage that we bind our- 
selves and limit ourselves beyond all under- 
standing. Do you remember a sentence once 
spoken by the greatest teacher the world 
has yet known — "He who loses his life 
gains it." I will not try to say one word 
in explanation of it, but ask you to con- 
centrate upon it in the light of reason and 
see what it reveals. See if it does not show 
you that selfishness is the greatest hind- 



VIBRATION 51 



ranee in the world to attaining the desire 
of your soul. 

I know, my dear, you do try most ear- 
nestly to be good; but what does it mean 
to "be good" anyway? All morality is 
merely a matter of opinion. You tell a 
child to "be good," and it is a meaningless 
phrase to him until you teach him what your 
version of goodness is, and then he only 
knows from your standpoint. A baby thinks 
to stop crying is to be good; and when it 
comes to great big babies, what do they 
think? That it's a great virtue and a glori- 
ous thing to go to war and murder their 
fellow-men, but a most heinous crime for a 
hungry man to help himself to the million- 
aire's dollar without permission, if he is 
smart enough to get hold of it. 

Oh, yes; we are very sensible, especially 
on the questions of morality and virtue! 
What lines we do draw — and every man 



$2 MENTAL HARMONY 

judges his fellow-man and quite forgets 
whether he is living up to the real standard, 
providing he is living up to the standard of 
his particular section of the country. 

He who has the courage to think for him- 
self and the heart to understand, knows that 
the old falsities are passing away, and that 
the higher truth, the truth of the Spirit, is 
gradually and steadily pervading all grades 
of humanity. Nature is revealing her secrets 
to man as never before, because he is 
seeking in the light of the spirit; and oh, 
my friends, from the seed planted in the 
human heart to the seed planted in the 
ground, nature reveals herself to him who 
wills to know. 

So many people think because they haven't 
had what the world calls an education they 
cannot comprehend the Esoteric Teachings. 
Dear me, what a mistake. Do you know, I 
am acquainted with people who have been 



VIBRATION 53 



through all the colleges they could find an 
excuse for entering, and then taken post- 
graduate courses in literature and the fine 
arts, who cannot comprehend the higher 
forces of nature sufficiently to keep from 
condemning their fellow-man and telling fibs 
whenever it is convenient, thus attracting to 
themselves all kinds of inharmonious vibra- 
tions. Now, what is the use of masses of 
information about the past iniquities of man- 
kind or the dead languages, or ancient Greek 
art, if you are going through life sick, and 
poor, and unhappy, because you do not 
comprehend nature's laws sufficiently to 
polarize yourself according to them and 
vibrate in the law of Love? 

To be sure, "To know is to have eternal 
life," but you must commence by knowing 
yourself; you must work from within out, 
and you must think and live in Freedom. 
Only free men can live the Truth, and as 



54 MENTAL HARMONY 

much freedom as you shut out, so much 
falsity do you let in. 

Esoteric Philosophy is simply the philoso- 
phy of real things. It does away with de- 
lusion, shows the correspondence between 
the seen and the unseen, and the connec- 
tion between so-called theories and the prac- 
tical use of those theories. In the esoteric 
teachings use determines all things, and when 
you come into a recognition of that truth 
you will save much time and not waste so 
many opportunities. 

Unless I can be of use to you, or you can 
be of use to me, what object is there in our 
association? Did you ever hear of a lot of 
women meeting together to play cards for the 
purpose of killing time? Killing Time! Are 
they losing their senses, when every moment 
of time killed reacts in disintegrating forces? 

No one recognizes more than I the right 
of every human being to think as he pleases, 



VIBRATION 55 



live as he pleases, and waste his blessed 
opportunities if he wishes to, but it is "too 
bad" to kill the most precious thing in the 
world. 

If you will only think, you will soon see 
the use in everything and turn your associa- 
tion into the higher vibration of use, instead 
of the lower one of idleness and waste. If 
you want to keep young and "healthy and 
wealthy and wise," you must build and 
utilize your forces, not scatter them. 

There never was a time when this dear 
old world was so plentifully supplied with 
cranks. God bless them. They bob up 
serenely in all manner of places and they 
are so full of their special hobby and so de- 
sirous that you should see things just as 
they do — and how interesting they are! I 
met one the other day who peacefully in- 
formed me that he was the greatest man in 
the world, could cure any disease or mis- 



56 MENTAL HARMONY 

fortune in the world, and was growing 
younger every minute. He put me on his 
list for daily treatment because I am a 
crank like himself and he loves me. He 
sends vibrations daily to people who pay 
him twenty-five dollars, and to those whom 
he loves, and as he makes a specialty of lov- 
ing everybody in the Universe and recog- 
nizing the oneness of things, I suppose you 
all get treated just the same as though you 
paid your twenty-five dollars. It's all right, 
though; we need these cranks. Conserva- 
tism has to be destroyed some way. When 
people begin to think, they begin to squirm. 
When you put a seed into the ground and 
it begins to recognize the life force within 
itself, it immediately proceeds to turn around 
and burst. It is individualizing itself. The 
growing tree will shatter the rock, and the 
growing thought will shatter conservatism. 



VIBRATION 57 



There is one thing that we must have, no 
matter what it costs, and that is Truth. 
Everything has its price, and we must pay 
for everything we have, but for truth we pay 
the dearest because it is the only thing in the 
world that is everlasting. You can't print 
anything else on your soul "for keeps." AH 
pain is delusion. It does not belong to you 
any longer than the necessary time for its 
note of warning. 

This high price that we must pay for 
Truth is the renunciation of self and per- 
sonality. It is living the life of reality and 
tearing down the barriers which we have 
raised by selfishness and condemnation of 
our brother. 

No one person or organization of persons 
has a corner on Truth. In this world to 
which we come for our studies of reality, 
Truth is as free as the love which enfolds 
us, as free as the atmosphere surrounding the 



58 MENTAL HARMONY 

Earth. In the world of delusion, however, 
it sometimes happens that some people get 
an idea that they are the only ones who are 
just right, and that only by going their way 
can the goal be reached. What goal are they 
trying to reach, anyway? Maybe they 
think because they can buy a reserved seat 
in church they can buy a reserved seat in 
Heaven. Where is that mystic place called 
Heaven, which lies in a man who rejoices 
that he is inside in comfort while his brother 
is outside in despair? 

Now, really, if all these dear, conven- 
tional people who are so much better than 
their fellow-men are going to Heaven, 
wouldn't you rather be where the really 
interesting people are, those who dare to 
think, wherever that place may be? 

It seems a difficult truth for some people 
to realize that money will not buy under- 
standing and that a man can have nothing 



VIBRATION 59 



that does not belong to him. If you refuse to 
see beyond your own dooryard, it is no sign 
that the world does not lie beyond, and if 
you refuse to perceive the marvelous realities 
of the universe, it is no proof that they are 
not there for him who has the ability to see. 
However, it is just as well to commence at 
the place where we are standing and evolve 
into the higher. It is just as well to use your 
common sense and walk, until you have the 
strength to fly. Common sense teaches you 
to eat when you are hungry, and rest when 
you are weary. Become as a little child, 
and when you are strong enough so that 
you do not need food and drink and care for 
your body, then do without, but the chances 
are when that time comes you will do with- 
out your body. Were you ever present when 
a great truth was suddenly made manifest 
to a concourse of people? How well I re- 
member during the World's Fair in Chicago, 



60 MENTAL HARMONY 

at the Parliament of Religions, when the 
thought of the oneness of all things was re- 
vealed to my intelligence. A teacher from 
the Orient stood before us, with his serene 
dignity, his quiet, calm voice, his perfect 
poise making him such a fitting instrument 
for the simple yet wonderful teachings of 
the philosophy of daily living which he was 
giving us. As he closed his lecture he used 

these words, "We are one." Like a flash of 

'J 
glorious sunshine came into the depths of 

my being the realization of the unity of all 

things — and over all that great audience 

came a hush — a stillness so great that it 

seemed the highest vibration of a great 

sound wave echoing again and again those 

marvelous words, "We are one" — not only 

all men, but all the atoms of this mighty 

Universe, all one, only differing in their rate 

of vibration. 

All one! Does it not open wondrous realms 



VIBRATION 61 



of thought? Does it not reveal to us our 
responsibility not only for each other, but 
for everything which is created? All one. 
There is the keynote. We are individual and 
we are one. We stand alone and we stand 
with all men. Our personality is now mani- 
fested in the higher vibration of individuality, 
and our relation to the eternal principle of 
life everlasting is oneness with it. 

Let us build on the rock of unity. It is 
such a big, strong rock. No wave of delu- 
sion can possibly wash it away. Unity is 
a universal harmonious law. Humanity is 
all one; nature is all one, differentiated by 
vibratory law. As the man is the micro- 
cosm of the Universe, so is the atom the 
microcosm of the man. Individual intelli- 
gence constitutes the atom and individual 
intelligence moves the Universe. 

Now, how can we condemn each other 
and how can we despise each other, when 



62 MENTAL HARMONY 

our relation is so close that we are one with 
each other? Just look at that in the light 
of reason and common sense, please. You 
see, when you think about things they begin 
to change, and the real side, the true side, 
begins to show. 

The fact is, man is the embodiment of the 
creative principle, and his creations are the 
manifestations of his thought. Now just 
think of this, every vibration sent out by 
the action of the mind means life or death 
to something, that is, it is either construc- 
tive or destructive in its effect, and the effect 
is frequently on the atoms of the body of 
the one who sends the thought. Every 
thought sent out embodies either love or 
fear. Love is construction and fear is de- 
struction, and all thought acts by reflex 
law on the sender. 

You see you are the arbiter of your own 



VIBRATION 63 



destiny, the ruler of your own life, and in 
very truth the creator of yourself. A 
human being is the greatest magnet in ex- 
istence, attracting just what he gives, and 
receiving vibrations from the Universe ac- 
cording to the quality of life impressed upon 
the soul and radiated from within. 

Let me tell you one very useful thing to 
do. You know we receive so much during 
the hours when the objective senses are in 
repose. Sleep is the result of over-active 
life force. It is not weariness from low ac- 
tion, but weariness and sleepiness are the 
warning that the action of the life force is 
too high in its vibration for the instrument 
to assimilate; so the objective senses are 
locked in repose while the subjective mind 
readjusts and harmonizes conditions. Don't 
you know that after intense excitement, 
either mental or physical, the body always 
demands sleep? And unless its demands 



64 MENTAL HARMONY 

are acceded to the result is most inhar- 
monious. 

In order to receive the best results from 
sleep it is well to suggest to your higher self 
just what impression you wish made upon 
the soul. Calm yourself and raise the vibra- 
tion of the mind's action by deep breathing 
and repeating some beautiful mantra or 
some song of praise to Jehovah. The whole 
circulation will change and every breath you 
draw during the time your objective senses 
are locked in slumber will be life-giving and 
strengthening. 

The soul life is the great consideration: 
the entire object of our sojourn on this planet 
is to develop and educate the soul that its 
vibrations may be constantly raised and con- 
structed according to Divine law. As the 
mind moves or vibrates, going out in the 
universe in search of knowledge and experi- 
ence, only those experiences are retained 



VIBRATION 65 



which are imprinted upon the soul, and we 
reflect into objectivity those impressions, be- 
cause the soul's vibrations are radiated 
through the physical expression, and if the 
body, the mind, and the soul vibrate in har- 
mony the effect is construction and life. 

Do you know that all vibrations of a 
spiritual nature travel on waves of magnetic 
force, and that by cultivating the spiritual 
thought you strengthen your magnetic force? 
You think it is such a valuable quality, this 
magnetic force, and so it is, and the sure 
way to increase your own magnetic power by 
attracting this force from the Universe is 
to live the higher life and vibrate in the law 
of love. 

Magnetism increases the life force, and 
there cannot be an enduring physical or 
mental power unless the magnetism is strong. 
If you wish to increase your power, purify 
your quality of life, and cultivate your mag- 



66 MENTAL HARMONY 

netic power, you must think constructively 
and spiritually and so raise your vibrations. 
Love is the highest vibration of a strong 
life force. In its higher vibration it is con- 
struction and in its lowest vibration it is 
destruction. Just as cold is the absence of 
heat, so is hate the absence of love. Many 
of these qualities which we think are so 
dreadful are only the lower vibration, of a 
force that in its higher vibration is beauti- 
ful. To illustrate: Suppose your child pre- 
varicates. Instead of condemning him for 
falsifying, suppose you help him raise his 
vibrations, and realize that it is only a per- 
verted imagination; then purify by love that 
little imagination until it becomes ideality, 
the beautiful thing it is intended to be. If 
we would only be a little more charitable 
and send a few vibrations of love to these 
people who are vibrating on the lower plane 
we might have geniuses instead of criminals. 



VIBRATION 67 



Again, unless there is a vibration in our- 
selves corresponding to the trait we con- 
demn, it would be impossible for us to 
perceive the so-called evil. It is an old but 
true saying that "It takes a thief to catch 
a thief." We cannot comprehend a vibra- 
tion that is not in our own being; and we 
are all very much alike. We vibrate dif- 
ferently, that is all; so let us teach people 
a few of nature's laws and soon the low 
vibration of selfishness, which is disintegrat- 
ing humanity, will be raised to the higher 
vibration of selflessness; and we will realize 
that we are in truth all one. 

There is only one way that earthly life 
can be worth living; and that is when you 
introduce the thought of an eternal life, and 
eternal progression; and the only way you 
can reasonably conceive of an eternal life 
is in the light of the law of vibration. Life 
is transcendently worth living when we 



68 MENTAL HARMONY 

perceive the truth of vibratory force. When 
we learn that law, and through it vibrate 
in the higher law of love, the spiritual con- 
sciousness then becomes the normal life 
and the spiritual and inner light reveal to 
us the truth. In order to produce a spiritual 
growth in the soul, a human being must be 
in harmony with himself; he must under- 
stand himself, and he must be true to him- 
self to really understand himself. He must 
also love himself in the just and perfect way, 
in order to be true to himself. 

Above all, never condemn yourself or have 
any regrets for past misdirected efforts and 
apparent failures. Don't be afraid to love 
yourself and everybody else. The more love 
you give, the more you receive and the more 
you have to radiate. Nothing so vivifies 
the conditions, nothing so elevates the sur- 
roundings and the personality, as vibrating 
in the law of love. 



VIBRATION 69 



The teacher in the East never argues. He 
simply says: "This or that is a fact. I give 
you this principle of Truth; go to nature 

i 

for the proof. Here are the keys of knowl- 
edge. Open the doors of your own soul and 
look for yourself.' ' The teacher in the West 
illustrates, argues, and tries to prove his 
teachings. The Eastern sage is wise. Well 
does he know that no man can teach another. 
He can inspire him. He can lead him to the 
fountain of truth; but each human being 
must perceive for himself, must carve out his 
own pathway. It is the Divine light within 
which must illuminate the way. 

So, when a new thought comes before us, 
let us become as little children who haven't 
grown too wise to love one another. Let us 
not condemn; but let us look at it and 
think about it. We may find therein life 
everlasting. Let us remember that to-day 
we are one day in advance of yesterday. 



70 MENTAL HARMONY 

The whole world has grown one day, and 
its vibrations have changed. A truth may 
find a resting place here to-day that yester- 
day could not have been perceived. O Char- 
ity! Truly the greatest of all is charity! 



CONCENTRATION 



72 



DAILY CONCENTRATION 

Sunday: J shall pray with my mind alive that 

I may be aware when my prayer is 
answered. 

Monday: / shall give the best of my life's efforts 
to the most menial of its duties, — 
knowing that the joy of living will greet 
me therein. 

Tuesday: J shall control my destiny by controll- 
ing the word of my mouth. 

Wednesday: / shall have no anxiety for the result 
of my labor. My responsibility rests 
in the pure motive of the present hour. 

Thursday: / shall stand upon my own feet with bead 
high and eyes uplifted that I may 
inbreathe the self-reliance of Divine 
strength. 

Friday: / shall release from the bondage of my 

condemning thought every one of my 
fellow men — that I also may be free. 

Saturday: / shall trust the law in purest patience 
— Knowing that time is infinite and 
that baste creates its own limitations. 




CONCENTRATION 

|0 you remember the story in that 
most beautiful of live books, 
"Mother Goose," about the old 
woman who tried to lift herself over the 
fence in her tub? Dear me! how vividly 
comes back my childish wonder as I saw her 
ample proportions filling up the tub and imag- 
ined her utterly futile attempt to move it. It 
would be so easy if she would only get out and 
put the tub over and then climb over after it, 
but the dear, fat old woman knew better — 
she would stay in the tub and get over in 
her own way. Bless her heart! she is only 
like most other folks. How seldom do they 
put the motive power where it belongs ! And, 
why don't they, you ask? I will tell you in 
very few words. Because they don't think 



74 MENTAL HARMONY 

properly. They don't control the mind and 
compel it to think right, and until they do 
they cannot put the motive power where it 
belongs. They must stay in the tub until 
somebody else puts them over. 

Oh, the pity of it! How few of these won- 
derful minds are used right! How few indi- 
viduals there are in this world! What a 
refreshing and inspiring thing it is to meet 
an individual; a man who thinks, and who 
uses his mind to make use of all the wonder- 
ful knowledge which is his by divine right, 
instead of scattering his life force through 
sheer inability to think in a straight line! 

Let me tell you something. A man is 
incapable of asking a question that he can- 
not answer for himself. He could not form 
it in his mind if he had not the power of 
answering it. The question is the beginning 
of the thought, the answer is simply the 
completed thought. But he must be capable 



CONCENTRATION . 75 

of concentrating his thought and holding it 
steadily according to his will. 

Do you know, the first stumbling block 
everyone encounters in his study of "real 
things" is that he cannot concentrate! The 
one cry is, "Teach me to concentrate," so 
that is our first and strong point. Indeed, 
it has to come first because nothing could 
follow without it. 

What is concentration, anyway? It is 
this: To centralize and utilize, in the high- 
est sense, every force within; and through 
the within control every force without. 
Round out and equalize on all planes, and 
do it by controlling the thought. 

Thoughtlessness is wasted time, and wasted 
time is wasted opportunity. To be thought- 
less is to be unreasonable, and true virtue 
consists in being reasonable. 

In our class work we have a way of call- 
ing our Philosophy "The Philosophy of 



76 MENTAL HARMONY 

common sense." We believe in permeating 
everything with common sense. While we 
are a group of peculiar and individual cranks, 
we are so tempered with common sense and 
real reasonableness that we love everybody 
and are tolerant of every one's opinion; we 
come together in harmony and study truth 
for truth's sake. 

While we do not always agree about every- 
thing, one thing we do agree about perfectly, 
and that is that we want to know things. 
We are positively voracious in our desire for 
knowledge, and we know the law well enough 
to know that the surest step toward acquir- 
ing knowledge is to desire it, and after hav- 
ing the true desire, all is ours. 

How clearly a face comes before me, one 
of our dear members, who said to me the 
very first time she came to our class: "Do 
you mean to tell me that I have a right to 
and ought to have everything I want?" 



CONCENTRATION 77 

Why not, dearie, if your motive is pure; 
you only want what belongs to you, and 
doesn't everything you need for the happi- 
ness and health of your body, mind, and 
soul, belong to you? I fail to see why a man 
should be poor on any plane — financially, 
physically, mentally, or spiritually. The 
Universe is so big and so full, and you are 
simply its reflection; why shouldn't you 
have your own share out of it, and your 
own share is just as much as you can hold. 
Poverty on any one plane disturbs the 
harmony of every other plane. No matter 
how highly cultured you are, no matter 
how buoyant is your physical life, if you 
have not sufficient money for your needs, 
it spoils the whole combination. And again, 
no matter how much money a man has, 
if he is sick or blind or has any physical ill, 
where is his harmony and strength? Now, 
we believe that the cure-all is to know things. 



78 MENTAL HARMONY 

Not only that knowledge which is of the 
intellect, but knowledge of the Soul; knowl- 
edge combined with understanding, that in- 
deed is Eternal life. 

How are we going to gain this knowledge? 
We are going to study ourselves, and help 
everyone we can to study himself. We are 
going to know how to breathe, what to eat, 
and how to absorb in every way the life 
forces of the Universe, and we are going to 
train our minds to think as we desire. 

The time is past when men can refuse to 
listen to the warning voice. We have now 
come to a place in our Evolution when the 
vibration of Earth is too high for many of 
its children, and they must think, or do you 
know what will happen? They will be unable 
to stay here and finish their experiences. In 
very truth the man who will not raise his 
vibrations will have to "get off the earth," 
because the physical body is attuned to its 



CONCENTRATION * 79 

counterpart of the Universe, Mother Earth, 
and when the man is not in harmony with 
it, it very quickly disintegrates. 

Of course you will say, Cannot the mind 
control the body? To be sure, that is ex- 
actly the point. You must control the mind, 
lest in its action it is destructive instead of 
constructive. The mind is the instrument 
of the Soul, and must be kept attuned and 
in perfect harmony. The Objective Mind 
must be one with the Subjective; in fact, 
the whole man must be harmonized, and he 
must be taught Concentration, for it's the 
sure way. 

It is our duty to remain in this Physical 
body as long as we have need of Earth's 
experiences. As is explained in the follow- 
ing lesson, we want to be wide awake and 
thoroughly alive when we get ready to leave 
our bodies and go on for further experiences. 
We want to use our opportunities so we can 



80 MENTAL HARMONY 

go into the next life in the full strength of 
our individuality. 

Concentrate! Of course you can concen- 
trate. You must think that you can; if 
you knew the barrier it creates you would 
never admit that anything is impossible or 
even difficult — the thought accentuates the 
condition. Practise and try not one time 
but many times, and when you have learned 
to control the thought you will soon control 
the conditions. 

How many people do you suppose really 
think, really concentrate their thought, and 
if they do think, how many have the power 
of directing the thought as the will desires? 

Think of the possibilities of a human being 
and the harumscarum condition of the 
minds of most of them. And really it is not 
surprising when you consider the gorging 
the mind is sometimes forced to endure. I 
have seen people, supposedly sensible, sit 



CONCENTRATION 81 

down to breakfast with a newspaper as well 
as their breakfast before them, and while 
they were loading the poor, abused stomach 
with all kinds of indigestibles, they were 
loading the much-abused mind with equally 
indigestible stuff. Murder, horrors of all 
kinds mixed in with politics and abuse of 
their fellow-man, and all seasoned with ac- 
counts of the opera and the latest new 
books. Dear me! such a chaotic mixture 
that it is no wonder the man has mental 
dyspepsia and wonders why he is unfor- 
tunate and is the victim of fate when he 
always tries to do exactly right. 

Nature is always kind; but when out- 
raged, her laws completely violated, she 
must rebel. It is not according to nature's 
laws to do three or four things at a time, 
and you must concentrate on the one thing 
you are doing if you expect to make a suc- 
cess of life. 



82 MENTAL HARMONY 

When you eat, you must eat consciously, 
so you can absorb the life forces from your 
food as well as the material part of it. You 
must concentrate on everything you do, even 
such an apparently simple thing as taking 
your bath in the morning; take it con- 
sciously and absorb all the vital life there is 
in the water. 

It is such a common complaint, — "I can- 
not concentrate/' There is no such word in 
the vocabulary of a sensible man as "cannot." 
You can do anything any other human being 
can do; and maybe a little more than any 
one has yet done, for does not each day 
bring added opportunities, and are you not 
greater than any circumstance or condition 
that may come to you? 

If you imagine you are unable to concen- 
trate you can certainly learn how, and if 
you intend to be successful on any plane 
of life you must learn. There is a way. 



CONCENTRATION 83 

You may not be able to do it in a moment 
or even in a month; but practise, practise, 
and never give up until you have mastered. 

What are we on this planet for, anyway? 
Use determines all things, and if it were 
not for some use, some purpose in the Di- 
vine plan, we would not be here. It seems 
reasonable to suppose that our first duty 
while here is to conform to the fundamental 
principle of use and so train ourselves to 
that end. As the soul is that part of the 
man capable of life everlasting, it must be 
the highest use to devote our energies to the 
Soul. 

Soul development then is our way to de- 
velop to its highest expression that part of 
the microcosm which is eternal life. Now 
the instrument which the soul uses is the 
mind, and the instrument of the mind is the 
physical body. The principle which is used 
by this wonderful human being is the will, 



84 MENTAL HARMONY 

an attribute of the Supreme principle of 
Love, and this mind must be trained, then, 
to perform its highest use by the direction 
of the will. 

There is a way to accomplish all things; 
and if you cannot think as you desire to, 
cannot control your mind, there is a way 
of training your mind through the effort of 
the will to do as that will directs. 

Of course it is easier to drift, but who 
wants to drift? That is disintegration; we 
want life, vital life, and we want to master 
our conditions and conquer on all planes of 
existence, and, what's more, we're going to 
do it. That is our Divine right, and when 
we follow the direction of the will, illumined 
by understanding, we always fulfil the law, 
for the understanding is the light — it is 
knowledge absorbed by the Soul. 

We have seen in our previous lessons that 
thought is the mind's action, the vibration 



CONCENTRATION 85 

of the mind. The mind in its action goes 
out into the Universe seeking experience, 
which according to its strength it imprints 
upon the soul. How important that it should 
gain experiences which are of use — that the 
thought should be concentrated to gain the 
greatest strength for its work. 

Mental dyspepsia is demoralizing to the 
mind and weakening to the soul. Don't 
waste force. Don't be in a hurry. You 
have all the time there is, and moving slowly 
and concentrating the thought upon what 
you are doing is the surest economy in the 
world. Hold your thought on what you are 
doing, and it means strength on whatever 
plane you are working. 

Work never made any one weary. It is 
inharmony and scattering the forces that is 
disintegration. Weariness is simply a sign 
of destruction; the cells are rebelling and 
warning you that they will strike if you 



86 MENTAL HARMONY 

impose on their rights much longer. When 
you are tired, go off alone, fill your body with 
life by breathing love into it, and concen- 
trate on some high and noble thought for a 
few moments. You will change your vibra- 
tion of destruction into one of construction 
at once. 

Yes, you say, but it is so hard to concen- 
trate. Is it? Well, almost everything worth 
knowing is difficult, but I'm going to give 
you some real easy exercises and soon you 
will say, "It is just beautiful to concentrate. 
How did I ever succeed in anything before 
I learned how to use my mind? ,, 

Of course we must recognize that we are 
living in peculiar and exciting times. Never 
before has the vibration of earth been so 
high. Never have conditions seemed so 
complex, and never has the opportunity for 
soul development been so great. So much 
more reason why we should concentrate, 



CONCENTRATION 87 

why we should control the mind and so 
overcome ourselves and our surrounding con- 
ditions. It can be done; the keynote for 
all overcoming and for all knowledge is 
concentration. 

It is impossible to breathe correctly until 
you know how to concentrate. Some of you 
may imagine that because you involuntarily 
move the lungs that you are breathing the 
breath of life; no, indeed, until you under- 
standingly absorb the essence of life in the 
atmosphere you do not breathe as you 
should. 

To be sure, some people concentrate more 
naturally than others; if you love anything 
you are very apt to concentrate upon it. 
Some children are said to be smart, others 
stupid. The difference is that one child un- 
consciously concentrates and the other child 
scatters its forces. Froebel knew the secret. 
He was an occult student and knew this 



88 MENTAL HARMONY 

law, so by teaching the child concentration, 
he has done more for humanity than is pos- 
sible to estimate. 

One dear little kindergarten wee wee said 
to me, looking at an orange, "I see a pretty 
light coming out of that orange. ,, Dear 
child; she had learned to concentrate and 
she saw the orange as it was, even the sur- 
rounding aura, for every object radiates an 
aura and is surrounded by it, and the trained 
eye will see it. All children do not grasp 
so thoroughly, but they perceive in a way 
that children who have not the kindergarten 
advantages do not so easily. 

So many teachers and healers talk about 
affirming and denying; that is all right, but 
do they tell you the whys of things? You 
make the affirmation "I am life." Of course 
you are life, but why, how, and what are 
your responsibilities in regard to this life 
that you are? Let us concentrate about 



CONCENTRATION 89 

that. Again they say, "All is good." "There 
is no evil." Surely that is true, but why 
isn't there evil, when the agonies of disinte- 
gration are everywhere? What law is it that 
proves that evil is simply the lower vibra- 
tion of good? What is the use of saying 
something if your mind isn't on it, and you 
do not perceive with your very soul senses 
what you are saying? Concentrate about 
this; put your mind on the affirmation you 
are making, and don't imagine that you are 
life until you perceive what life is, and im- 
press it upon your soul. 

In the study of the higher law, concen- 
tration is the first lesson. It cannot be 
impressed too strongly. You must discrimi- 
nate and absorb with every physical sense, 
and you will raise the vibration of the seven 
physical senses; you must concentrate them 
all in one, and separate them when you 



90 MENTAL HARMONY 

will; you must be able to turn the mind 
within into its innermost depths and see 
yourself as you are — in short, you, your 
individual self, shall by concentration be 
centered and controlled. 

No man ever made a success of business if 
he could not concentrate. No woman ever 
was a good housekeeper if she could not 
place her mind upon her home. No musi- 
cian ever mastered his instrument unless he 
trained his mind and his whole body to that 
end and concentrated upon it. Let me tell 
you again and again it is the keynote. You 
must learn to concentrate to succeed in 
anything. 

In commencing the study and practise of 
concentration, it has been found more satis- 
factory to center the mind upon some ex- 
ternal object. Madam Blavatsky was a 
deep student of concentration, and in her 
teaching makes a special point of it. One 



CONCENTRATION 91 

day, in speaking on the subject, she pointed 
to a matchbox lying on the table and said, 
"I can so center my mind on that match- 
box that I can believe myself alone in the 
universe with only that object before me." 
That is concentration, to place the mind 
upon an object or any subject to the ex- 
clusion of everything else in existence. 

In taking any exercise in concentration, 
as in doing everything else in life, you must 
use your common sense; when the eyes grow 
weary, stop — that is your warning. One 
class of students might have better results 
from a candle, and another group might do 
better with a crystal or a glass of water. In 
our classes we have tried many methods, 
but the most satisfactory results have been 
obtained with a lighted candle. Sometimes 
we have taken flowers, and it is wonderful 
and really pitiful to see their delicate life 
fade with the withering force of the strong 



92 MENTAL HARMONY 

thought centered upon them; where the 
concentration is co-operative we have had 
a rose wither in five minutes. 

Possibly you will think that the thought 
sent out was a disintegrating thought. No; 
it might have been a thought of love, but 
centered with such force upon the rose that 
the vibration was too high for its enduring 
power. You know sometimes the sun rays 
become so powerful they destroy instead of 
construct, and you can readily see how im- 
portant it is to control the mind and do 
your work understandingly, or the thought 
forces may master you instead of you mas- 
tering them. 

Let me give you a little exercise in con- 
centration with a wax taper. 

Place it lighted upon a table near the 
center of the room. If it is a group of 
several students, form a circle around the 
table. If you are tryiag it alone, seat your- 



CONCENTRATION 93 

self before the table with your back to the 
outside light. 

Place your feet firmly on the floor with 
the hands on the knees, head erect, and the 
whole body in the positive attitude. 

Now fix your vision on the flame and with 
a physical effort exhale all the air in the 
lungs; and with a mental effort throw all 
thought out of the mind. 

Now reverse the effort and take a deep 
breath — breathe in widths, breathe deeply 
and regularly. 

Now center the mind, through the eyes, 
upon the flame of that candle and hold it 
there as long as you can without discomfort. 
You may be able to do so for two minutes 
the first time, but if you can hold the mind 
on the flame for thirty seconds to the ex- 
clusion of all else, you have done well. 

Then close the eyes and you will see the 
light for an instant with the closed eyes. 



94 MENTAL HARMONY 

Hold them closed until the vision of the 
candle has disappeared, then open them and 
try again. 

In class work it is a good plan to have 
the candle removed during the concentra- 
tion exercise, while the students are looking 
at it, and it frequently happens that the 
image of the randle on the table remains 
before the eyes several moments after the 
material candle has been removed. 

The same exercise can be taken with a glass 
of water, and when the concentration is co- 
operative, the water in the glass will move, 
showing that thought is not only a substance, 
but a tremendous reality, a mighty force, the 
most powerful force in the universe because 
the most subtle, and capable of penetrating 
the heights and the depths of its immensity. 

After a few days' practise with concen- 
tration you will notice how very much longer 
you can hold the gaze upon the candle, and 



CONCENTRATION 95 

how much longer its flame remains in your 
vision when the eyes are closed. Soon you 
will see the aura of the candle, and you will 
be surprised at the different view you will 
take of everything before your eyes. Life 
itself will become more real, for you are 
commencing to open your senses to reality. 

All these exercises are only practise, the 
means to an end, but practise is necessary. 
You practise your scales on the piano to be 
able to materialize grand harmonies of sound, 
so you practise control of the thought to 
enable you to use the mind to instil into 
the soul life grand harmonies of universal 
love. 

When you have trained your mind so that 
it will obey your will even in a slight degree, 
turn your attention to a higher vibration of 
practise and take some word to concentrate 
upon. Suppose now that you had often de- 
sired to know the real inner meaning of the 



96 MENTAL HARMONY 

word "Faith," — beautiful word, carrying 
with it a Heavenly vibration of Love and 
Hope; what does it mean? Place your mind 
upon the word and think. If you cannot 
hold it steadily, keep saying it out loud; if 
that won't do, write it in big letters and pin 
it on the wall before you. Insist, demand, 
and keep on until you can succeed in making 
the necessary impression upon your mind. 
When you can hold that word in your mind 
and throw out every other thought for the 
time being, you will be surprised at the 
wonderful meaning it will have for you; and 
as you absorb its vibrations, making them 
yours, you will realize the wonderful truth 
of the teachings of the Master, "Ask and 
it shall be yours." 

Oh, Life! Beautiful life, incomprehensible 
only because we will not comprehend; value- 
less because we will not take possession of its 
countless treasures! He who will but study 



CONCENTRATION 97 

himself, learn to concentrate, shall find all 
its unspeakable joys, all its sacred mysteries 
revealed to his enraptured gaze. Through 
the avenue of concentration will he come 
into that Divine Enlightenment which is his 
own. 

There is no reason why a man should be 
ignorant, no reason why his capacity is 
limited except for lack of power to concen- 
trate, and that is possible to overcome. There 
is no reason why a man should be poor or 
sick except because of his ignorance; he 
ignores the laws of his being because he has 
not concentrated upon them sufficiently to 
know them, but it is never too late to com- 
mence; control the mind, and when once 
you have control of the mind you will con- 
trol your own life conditions. 

To desire anything with a pure motive is 
to deserve it. He who desires Occult Knowl- 
edge, whose motive is unselfish, is assured of 



98 MENTAL HARMONY 

the fulfilment of his desire; but oh, ye Stu- 
dents of Truth! After having once taken the 
step of becoming a disciple of Truth in its 
higher vibration, there is no turning back. 
When a man makes the decision, either con- 
sciously or unconsciously, to find himself, 
when he consecrates himself to unite his Ob- 
jective and Subjective mind, he finds his 
mentality and will power increasing, and 
every step he takes means progression; it 
is always onward, upward, a never-ending 
growth. 

Too long we have thought that "There is 
nothing great in the Universe but man, and 
there is nothing great in man but mind." 
That is a most material view of this mar- 
velous microcosm. There is something far 
greater in man than mind, something which 
is vaster, something which is sublimer, 
something which as he catches a glimpse of 
it seems to the man like a ray of light that 



CONCENTRATION 99 

has come down into his mind from some- 
thing that is above, and yet he recognizes 
that it is a radiation of and is really a part 
of himself; his higher self, as it were, strug- 
gling for recognition. 

Now what you must do is to become ac- 
quainted with yourself. You will be sur- 
prised how interesting you are. Analyze 
your feelings, your emotions, and see what 
your motives are; think, look within and 
study yourself. It takes time to grow, and 
do you know another thing, growth is 
painful; you must pay the price for every- 
thing you gain in life, and those who know 
tell us that all things have their price, but 
for truth we pay the dearest — but it is 
well worth any price; its value is unspeakable. 

The mission of the Soul is to individualize 
the Spirit, and the instrument of the soul 
is the mind. There is no time to lose; un- 
less the mind is controlled how are you going 



ioo MENTAL HARMONY 

to impress the experiences of life upon the 
soul, how are you going to use your opportu- 
nity and make your individuality a real and 
everlasting truth? The control of the mind, 
concentration of thought, not only gives 
power to overcome conditions of earth, but 
far greater power, power of becoming one 
with the Father, of having and being a 
Divine expression of life. 

Life is a grand reality. We are only in 
our embryotic state on this planet. The 
greater life commences when we are born 
on the next plane, but how important it is 
that we shall be born alive, awake, and 
ready to fulfil the law, instead of a poor 
weakling who has to be breathed into life 
by stronger souls. To be born conscious, 
that is the great responsibility, and if the 
opportunities which are ours are utilized, we 
shall certainly find that knowledge which 
means consciousness on higher planes. 



CONCENTRATION 101 

The Persian poet wrote: "There is no 
Heaven or Hell but that which man creates 
for himself/ ' He might have added with 
equal truth that man creates himself, builds 
himself around the life which is his. He 
does it by his thought, just as he creates his 
conditions by his thought. So again let me 
impress upon you the importance of concen- 
tration; according to your thought are you 
created, for you are recreated, reincarnated 
daily. You change every hour, and the 
change is the result of the thought. So 
think thoughts of life, thoughts of reality, 
thoughts of vital love, and attract that 
understanding which is life everlasting. 



BREATHING 



J sang my song by the mountain side 
And the tone was clear and strong; 

In silvery waves it quivered wide. 

With vivid life it swept the tide 
And echoed long and long. 

For never a breath of love goes jortb 

That is lost to the human heart, 
And never a song sweeps over the earth 
And never a message of living worth 
But lives on to do its part. 




BREATHING 

WANT to take you with me to-day 
into a beautiful country where all 
is harmony and peace, where all the 
senses are blended into one supreme sense; 
where you see, hear, smell, and taste the life 
forces around you in every part of your body, 
and then I want you to listen to me while I 
tell you of the most wonderful thing in the 
world; the life that is you, and that you 
attract into your being every time you breath 
in the air around you. 

Now, isn't this a delightful world? How 
happy we are that we are privileged to live, 
move, and have our being on such a planet; 
and not only to have the opportunity of 
expressing our lives here, but the opportu- 
nity of inbreathing from the whole universe 
every quality of life within it. 



106 MENTAL HARMONY 

Ah, yes! It is a great privilege to be 
created a human being; to be made in the 
image of the Divine. Just think about it 
once, this perfect thing that you are intended 
to be, and then don't waste any more time 
about raising your vibrations to become one 
with your Creator and fulfil the Divine 
plan. 

That is what we have come into this 
illumined country for to-day; we want to 
talk about raising our vibrations; and you 
want to be in harmony with yourself and 
me while I tell you about this breath of life, 
and while I show you just a little wee, wee 
bit how to accomplish this end, and how 
to control this vital force. 

In the first place, while you are listening 
to me, do sit erect, head, neck, and spinal 
column in a straight line. It really is a 
dreadful thing to sit crooked. You see, the 
spinal cord is inside the vertebral column 



BREATHING 107 



and not attached to it. When you sit or 
stand crooked you disturb the spinal cord, 
and whenever you breathe with the spinal 
cord crooked you inharmonize every nerve in 
you and do yourself an injury. 

Isn't it too bad how we abuse our beau- 
tiful bodies? The only wonder is that they 
serve us as well as they do. 

Now, I want you to breathe regularly for 
two reasons; first, I wish you to be poised 
and thoroughly harmonious, because I have 
some very interesting things to tell you; 
and second, I want you to inbreathe what I 
tell you and absorb it into yourself with the 
inner breath. Don't you know how in our 
class work we usually take a deep breath- 
ing exercise at its close, in order that we 
may absorb into every center of the body 
the vibrations of the lesson? And most 
effectual it is, too. Now, to-day you are to 
breathe consciously all the time, because in 



108 MENTAL HARMONY 

this country we perceive things and you 
must be ready. 

What is known as breathing is a mighty 
poor apology for it, I assure you. But be- 
fore I say another word let's take this exer- 
cise. Now try with me; exhale all the air 
in the lungs, and gently inhale a conscious 
breath. We will count four for the inbreath, 
and four for the outbreath. Breathe in and 
out in a measured, regular way. Now again, 
rhythmically, evenly. Isn't that refreshing? 
Are not your tired nerves calmer and is not 
a rest coming over your wearied senses? 

When you think of the nerve center that 
controls the respiratory organs, and its in- 
fluence over the nerves, you can easily per- 
ceive the importance of regular breathing, 
that all the atoms of the body will have a 
tendency to move in the same direction; they 
will know exactly what is required of them, 
and move rhythmically and in harmony.* 



BREATHING 109 



And oh, my dear sisters, do cast aside, if 
only for a brief exercise, that horrid crea- 
tion of conventionality — known as the 
corset. Just think how you are interfering 
with the laws of harmony when you suppress 
one of the most important centers of the 
body and prevent the life force from per- 
meating it. Don't you know that when all 
the centers of the body act with one motive, 
that the body becomes a tremendous power, 
a mighty magnet, a gigantic battery of life 
force? And here you suppress one of these 
wonderful centers, the solar plexus. Why do 
you do it? It certainly isn't for beauty, and 
it certainly isn't for comfort — it must be 
because other people do it. Won't it be nice 
when we do things because we want to, and 
not because somebody else does it! When 
you have a few more ideas about breathing, 
maybe you will think as you are inspired to 
think, and become an individual. 



HO MENTAL HARMONY 

Now, let's breathe, and live, and inspire 
into every inch of our bodies- and every 
atom of our souls this vital force. 

We don't want to get old, do we? We 
don't care how long we stay here. This is 
a dear, happy home, we like to stay, but we 
don't want wrinkles and aches and all sorts 
of signs of dissolution. No, we want to con- 
trol these muscles and breathe the vital life 
into them, so that they get stronger all the 
time, and when we have been here eighty 
years we will be more beautiful and more 
buoyantly full of life than when we were 
eighteen, because at eighty we know so 
much more, and should be just that much 
stronger. 

Do you know millions of people live, no, 
I mean exist, on this planet for years, and 
really believe that they have to be sick, and 
have all kinds of troubles, that it is a kind 
of a visitation of Providence! Now, isn't 



BREATHING in 



that odd? Fd rather Providence didn't 
visit me if that was his way. They don't 
know that everything that happens to them 
belongs to them because they attract it, and 
that just as soon as they learn to control the 
muscles and by that knowledge learn to 
breathe, to control the body, they will soon 
understand breathing to control the con- 
ditions. 

Oh, dear, dear! How we do suffer by 
ignoring the law; and just think how sur- 
prised some of us will be when we wake 
up in another sphere of life, and realize the 
way we didn't improve our opportunities. 

Strange, isn't it, that the commonest thing 
in the world is the greatest mystery of life. 
Really, the simplicity of things is most won- 
derful. The Breath is the life. Marvelous 
thought! Every breath you inhale is that 
vibration of spirit which is life. The lungs 
move involuntarily. You can't help it. If 



112 MENTAL HARMONY 

it required any effort or any thought, many 
of you would stop breathing at once, and as 
the lungs move, you unconsciously take in 
enough of the atmosphere to sustain the 
physical life. The breath is not producing 
the motion; the motion is producing the 
breath. 

Now, supposing you realize that within 
this breath is an inner breath, the spiritual 
life force of the external breath; I rather 
think you will place your conscious thought 
upon it, and control the muscles of your 
body so that you can receive the greatest 
benefit from your breathing and inhale the 
spiritual essence of life as well as the physical. 

Let me see. Have I commenced in the 
wrong place, told the last thing first? Never 
mind, when you are teaching from the plane 
of love, it doesn't matter very much where 
you begin, because it all works out in har- 
mony anyway, and we want to know things 



BREATHING 113 



from the plane of love, don't we? When 
you really know things you love them and 
see the beautiful in them. It is the man who 
does not know the Supreme Intelligence who 
is lacking in love. He who does not know 
nature, is he who cannot perceive her beau- 
ties. To know things, then, is to love them, 
and to love them is to know them, for we 
breathe in and absorb that which we love. 
Suppose, now, we go back a little ways. 
Possibly many of you think you can control 
your body. Please try to move the ears. 
How many of you can write equally well 
with both hands? No, you cannot control 
your body very well. You are not even con- 
scious of many of the muscles in it. Yet 
you should be able so to manipulate those 
muscles that you could draw the breath 
to any part of your body, clear to your toes, 
and feel the breath as it vibrates through 
the limbs and into every atom of your being. 



114 MENTAL HARMONY 

No, my dear; don't tell me that is im- 
possible. You certainly remember a teacher 
who gave us the Hatha Yoga lessons a few 
years ago, who demonstrated to us perfectly 
that he could breathe when his nostrils and 
mouth were closed, and that every muscle 
in his body was individually under his con- 
trol. I remember particularly when he 
showed us how to breathe through the eyes, 
and told us how dreadful it is for people to 
lose their sight or have defective vision just 
because they did not know how to exercise 
the muscles of the eye and breathe to them. 

Isn't it queer, when you think of it, how 
people do object to being taught — most 
people, I mean? They certainly know that 
knowledge is power on all planes, and yet 
they do not want to learn the more real 
knowledge. When you say to a man, "You 
can live without food and even without water 
for a time, but you can't live without breath- 



BREATHING 115 



ing for five minutes," he will admit you are 
right, but when you tell him his spiritual 
life depends upon his breath as well as his 
physical life, he immediately thinks you are 
deluded. 

The truth is that when your physical 
body gets through breathing the atmosphere, 
your spiritual body will keep on breathing 
its life essence just the same. While the 
spiritual body is clothed in the physical 
envelope, the spiritual breath is clothed in 
its envelope, the physical breath. 

Nothing exists on this planet without a 
cause in the spiritual world. What a beau- 
tiful thought it is that we are so permeated 
with the Divine Inspiration! 

Oh, yes, I did promise you some breathing 
drills. Well, wait a minute. I don't want 
to give them to you until you know what 
you are doing. Incalculable injury has been 
done by people practising the deep breathing 



Ii6 MENTAL HARMONY 

before they really knew what they were 
doing. Don't be in a hurry; you have all the 
time there is; and after years of ignoring the 
law, you can't jump into the middle of things 
in a moment. Be serene. The calm, quiet 
work is the most effectual. All growth is 
in the silence. 

I intend to give your several exercises, 
because of course you must practise. You 
have to learn for yourself. How many times 
have I told you that I cannot teach you any- 
thing. Maybe I can inspire you a little bit, 
although in reality the inspiration you re- 
ceive is what you inbreathe from the uni- 
versal spirit; it is the inspiring of the spirit 
breath. 

Every thought that comes to you is an 
inspiration, although not necessarily a good 
one. You have perceived that everything 
in the universe is spirit in different rates of 
vibration, so you see your inspiration need 



BREATHING 117 



not necessarily be of a high vibration. A 
man might be inspired to commit a murder 
as well as to endow a hospital. One is the 
inbreathing of a low vibration of spirit, and 
the other a high one; both, however, are 
inspirations. Unless you are expressing the 
high vibration you will scarcely inbreathe it. 

We only inspire and inbreathe that which 
corresponds to our thought. We attract 
what we are within, and the thought, which 
is the result of the mind's action, determines 
the quality of the life force which we attract 
with the breath. 

Now I want to give you a breathing exer- 
cise. I could go on talking all this beauti- 
ful day about the whys of things, when I 
really wish to demonstrate a little. Of course 
it will not be very much, but it may give 
you a passing glimpse of the possibilities of 
what you may do with some understanding 
of these higher forces. 



n8 MENTAL HARMONY 

The drill which I am now going to give 
you will assist you in concentrating the 
thought upon the inner spiritual breath. It 
is a concentration breath exercise. 

Maybe you think because the machinery 
of the body moves, and unconsciously you 
inhale enough of the atmosphere to sustain 
the physical body, and exhale enough of the 
poison to protect you, that you are breath- 
ing. Believe me, it is only an imitation of 
breathing unless you inhale enough of the 
vital life force to sustain your soul life also. 

This breath means life on all planes, and 
it always seemed so interesting to me in the 
Bible where Jehovah breathed into the man 
the breath of life. The thought seems domi- 
nant that the man existed before that, but 
his soul life commenced with that great 
breath of Spiritual life. 

Whenever you take any breathing drill, be 
sure that the air surrounding you is pure 



BREATHING 119 



and fresh, and also that the thought vibra- 
tions near you are of the kind you are will- 
ing to absorb, because unless you thoroughly 
understand protecting yourself, you are liable 
to breathe in the thought which surrounds 
you. 

Remember that you are master of your 
own being. It is well to say the words "I 
am master of myself, and will be supreme in 
my own domain/' Now take your seat in a 
straight-back chair facing the east. Take 
the positive position, with the hands on the 
knees, the feet on the floor, head and back 
erect. Inhale and exhale deeply and regu- 
larly from seven to ten minutes, and always 
breathe through the nostrils, keeping the 
mouth closed. Cross the right foot over the 
left, and the right hand over the left on the 
abdomen. Close the eyes and do not move. 
Banish every thought from the mind and^sit 
in this way as long as you can, twenty 



120 MENTAL HARMONY 

minutes or even half an hour if possible, 
unless you get sleepy; then stop at once. 

You always want to have your surplus 
stock of common sense conveniently near 
when you are taking breathing exercises. 
Some people come into this training with 
such enthusiasm that they constantly overdo, 
and have to be as constantly held back. 
Others must be inspired to go on. As dear 
old mammy used to say, "There's a heap 
o' difTunce in folks." 

Isn't it nice to think, ay, to know, that 
you can breathe into your being from out 
the universe any force you may wish to 
attract? And it is also such a comfort to 
know that you can radiate the force which 
you attract. Health and happiness are 
quite as contagious as sickness and misery, 
and I assure you that if you properly use 
your breath, sickness is impossible, not only 
to yourself but to people around you. 



BREATHING 121 



Of course there is one of the mightiest 
words in the world right in the way. 
Wouldn't it be lovely if there were no ifs? 
No; I don't believe it would. How do you 
expect to climb if there are no rocks to climb 
on? If there is nothing to overcome you 
can't develop your strength; and, after all, 
when we have conquered the world, there is 
nothing to remain here for. That is what 
these ifs are for. You are going to overcome 
and develop the soul strength by overcoming 
every obstacle in your path. 

The quality you need for overcoming is 
strength. Now let's see how you are going 
to cultivate this force; we will try breath- 
ing for it, and I will tell you how. Every 
morning as soon as possible you should go 
out into the open air and take a breathing 
exercise, if it is only to exhale all the air in 
your body, and breathe in the glorious fresh- 
ness of the morning sun. You have never 



122 MENTAL HARMONY 

thoroughly appreciated the sun unless you 
have inbreathed its life essences in the early 
morning. Don't be afraid of taking cold. It 
is an old and exploded idea that people take 
colds, and you can absorb nothing but forces 
of life when you are taking any kind of a 
breathing exercise in the open air. 

Now the force you desire is strength; place 
your mind upon the word " strength' ' with all 
its grand depths of meaning, and take a deep 
breath. Don't be too intense about it; did 
I not tell you that your greatest strength is 
in the stillness? Breathe deeply and regu- 
larly with the thought of strength and 
absorb its vibrations into the depth of your 
being. 

"Strength" is such a big, glorious word, it 
means so much that some day I want to 
give you a whole lesson on that word alone. 
We will come here into this beautiful coun- 
try where we preceive things, and I will tell 



BREATHING 123 



you how you need strength, and how you 
can attain it. 

You must be strong financially before you 
can be generous. You must be strong 
physically before you can be virtuous. You 
must be strong mentally before you can ac- 
quire knowledge. In fact, you must have it, 
and the surest way to get it is to breathe it 
out of this mighty universe. 

There is one exercise I should like to give 
you to-day that always especially appeals 
to me. It has such a grand symbolism and 
such a comprehensive correspondence. In 
order to use this exercise, however, you must 
be familiar with the Zodiac, which is the 
symbol of the universe. fThose of you who 
have been students of the esoteric law for 
any length of time are all familiar with the 
signs of the Zodiac, and realize something of 
their deep meaning; and those of you who 
are just entering these portals must study 



124 MENTAL HARMONY 

these symbols which encompass in their 
mystic circle untold treasures of knowledge 
and understanding. 

Place in your mind the symbol of the 
Zodiac. Hold it there till it seems to you a 
living thing. If you cannot concentrate 
upon it with sufficient strength to retain it, 
practise until you can. You surely know 
that truth students object to the words "can 
not/' because they know a human being can 
do anything he wants to. There is always a 
way when you really desire to do anything. 
It always seems to me rather a waste of force 
to make a lot of excuses for some remiss 
action, when the only excuse is, "I want 
to" or "I don't want to." 

Realize that this symbol corresponds to 
the Macrocosm, the universe. Also that it 
corresponds to the Microcosm, the human 
being. Now with the circle in your mind 
place the mental vision upon Pisces, which 



BREATHING 125 



corresponds to the feet; concentrate upon 
the feet of the Universal Grand Man, and 
then breathe clear to your own feet. You 
can feel the course of the vibrating breath as 
it permeates and vitalizes the atoms of your 
being. 

Now take the next sign, Aquarius, and in 
the same way draw in the breath to the part 
of your body which corresponds to Aqua- 
rius. Then take Capricorn, which represents 
the knees, and concentrate upon that part of 
the Macrocosm, breathing at the same time 
to your knees. Keep on in that way until 
you have completed the circle and thoroughly 
vitalized every part of your body and har- 
monized your entire being. 

It is well to take about two minutes to 
each sign of the Zodiac; however, it always 
depends upon conditions and circumstances. 
One minute to each sign is effectual, thus 
taking twelve minutes for the exercise, and 



126 MENTAL HARMONY 

I have known students who take five minutes 
for each sign. I always let my inspiration 
guide me. If I want to concentrate longer 
on Leo than on Virgo I do so, or any other 
sign. It is more according to my taste 
to do as I please and forget about the 
watch. * 

This is really a most useful drill for pro- 
ducing harmony and polarizing the spiritual 
strength, and even for physical ills it is ex- 
cellent. In cases of insomnia I have never 
known it to fail; many times when it is 
practised for insomnia the person is asleep 
long before the circle is completed. 

However, you are not working to cure 
physical inharmony, but for knowledge, and 
you are not supposed to go to sleep while 
practising that drill or any other. 

While the chief object in our work is the 
acquiring of knowledge so that we can over- 
come on all planes, we realize that the physi- 



BREATHING 127 



cal overcoming is of the utmost importance, 
and that it always follows the spiritual ad- 
vancement. On no plane are the results of 
the breathing study shown more than on the 
physical. It is really wonderful what you 
can do with even a little understanding of 
the control of the breath. 

Most assuredly, my dear, the knowledge 
of the breath which gives such power is a 
most dangerous thing if it happens to fall 
in the wrong hands. But don't you know 
that accidents don't happen in such matters, 
and such power would not remain in the 
possession of a man who is capable of dese- 
crating it very long? 

The Divine Intelligence is never manifested 
with greater strength than in this truth, that 
great truths are only given to those who are 
worthy. The instant the desire comes to a 
man to know truth for truth's sake, the 
way is open. When he needs a teacher, that 



128 MENTAL HARMONY 

need will be filled; and when he has ex- 
hausted the earth's teachers, he will find 
those from higher spheres. You can rest 
assured that those who are ready and 
worthy will find the truth no matter if their 
abiding place be in the wilds of a trackless 
desert. 

There never was a miracle in this world 
or any other. As people commonly under- 
stand miracles they are a violation of the 
law. Do you imagine the law can be broken? 
Oh, no; when you make an attempt at 
breaking it, it is you who get broken, not 
the law. A miracle is simply the fulfilment 
of the law by the action of a higher vibra- 
tion, producing harmony in a short time 
that would take longer with the action of 
the lower vibration. 

If you are ill and my coming into your 
presence, or sending you a vibration, cures 
you, I have simply raised your vibration by 



BREATHING 129 



the contact of my vital life force, which is 
stronger than yours. You would probably 
get well anyway, only you haven't sufficient 
strength to attract the energy that radiates 
from me, and you inbreathe it as I send it to 
you. Isn't it wonderful, this study of the 
action of nature's forces? — the very soul 
essence of the Universe becoming manifest 
to us through the mighty power of the law. 
Truly "the law of the Lord is perfect." 

Sometimes I am asked: "What proof have 
you of these things, vast theories of Mind, 
Spirit, Vibration, etc.? How do you know 
it?" Ah, my friends, in this country, where 
we perceive truth, we don't need proof. It 
would be farcical to even attempt to give it. 
If you had to have external proof for what 
you know, you wouldn't know very much. 

I would not even know there is a country 
called China, because I've never been there 
to my conscious recollection. I may have 



130 MENTAL HARMONY 

been there many times, for I've had some 
strange and wonderful journeys; but I can't 
prove China's existence even to myself, and 
yet I firmly believe there is such a place. 

I don't need to dissect a rat to believe 
that he has a wonderful internal structure 
inside his pretty gray fur coat, but I certainly 
believe it. This talk of proving things by 
the physical senses is all nonsense. You can't 
do it. The higher vibration of the senses, 
and the combination of them all, perception, 
is the only proof of anything. 

That is why I love this country of reality, 
where we have come to-day; I love to bring 
you here, leaving the world of delusion be- 
hind us, when I have a great and beautiful 
truth to tell you, and want you to perceive 
its beauties from the standpoint of reality. 
I want you to look within and only believe 
those things that your inner sense tells you 
are true. 



BREATHING 131 



So come with us; be one with us, and we 
will all come into this pure sweet country 
of reality, where the light of truth permeates 
and radiates, and where we know things, and 
knowing love them. 



MIND 



Oh mighty Cause, — 

There is no thing which is not thine. 

Ob glorious Love, — 

When thou art Cause all is divine. 

Oh living Truth, — 

When I am Love, then all is mine. 




MIND 

■ADE in his image, molded in the 
form of the Infinite perfection, the 
microcosm of this glorious macro- 
cosm, a human being with the potentialities 
of the Divine Being — that is man. 

Just think of it, and marvel at your great- 
ness. Contemplate your responsibility, for 
you are this wonderful creature, this em- 
bodiment of every law in the universe which 
you represent. 

The fundamental principle of all spiritual 
philosophy is that the human being is the 
microcosm of the universe and from that 

standpoint must we study the mind as well 

.J 
as the soul and body, not only of the man 

but of the universe. 

Now, let us reason together and see what 

part of our structure the mind is, and what 



136 MENTAL HARMONY 

is the relation of the Universal Mind to the 
human mind. Yes, indeed, there are many 
points to consider, many sides to view, for 
the mind has unlimited capacity, and when 
turned within upon itself sees marvelous 
things. 

Oh, the weakness of language when one 
attempts to convey the ideas of reality! Oh, 
for words with which to clothe the immortal 
truth, and present it to humanity in such 
form that it will help us all to raise the 
thought of the mind into the consciousness 
of the soul. 

One beautiful Truth student said to me, 
"I do not recognize anything but mind; to 
me it is all in all and there is nothing else." 
Then, dear, you do not recognize the mind, 
for it is but the manifestation of the soul, 
the instrument of the soul, as it were. And 
as the mind of man is the instrument of the 
individual divine soul of man, so is the mind 



MIND 137 



of the universe the instrument of the great 
soul of the universe, for therein is the law, 
"As it is above, so it is below." 

It, therefore, follows that to recognize our- 
selves as one with the Universal Intelligence 
and in harmony with the forces of the Uni- 
verse, we must attune the Objective Mind 
to the Subjective Mind and realize that in 
the great Universal Mind is all Knowledge 
and all power, and that by becoming one 
with it we become or, rather, we are, all 
power and all knowledge. 

The physical body is the instrument of the 
human mind, as the physical earth is the 
instrument and projective manifestation of 
the universal mind. In the work of life the 
mind and the body perpetually respond to 
each other, and it is useful to understand 
the mechanism of the body to comprehend 
the structure of the mind, for Mother Nature 
is most harmonious when we allow her to 



138 MENTAL HARMONY 

so manifest herself, the body, and the mind, 
and the soul are mutually dependent upon 
each other. AH contain the same eternal 
principles, all working together with the same 
grand purpose of impressing the soul with 
everlasting knowledge, which is Eternal life, 
thereby individualizing the Universal spirit. 
Now, throw aside the idea of growth. The 
mind does not grow; it manifests itself, de- 
velops its own strength as it goes out into 
infinite space and gathers facts. These facts 
are impressed upon the soul, and remember 
this, only Truth is everlasting. Thoughts 
which are delusive fade away as a vanishing 
mist that cannot endure the light of the sun; 
for instance, pain is delusion no matter how 
apparent to the physical man — in the light of 
Truth all inharmony must disappear. Now, 
please do not misunderstand me. The effect 
of pain is eternal in whatever way we allow 
it to affect the soul senses — if the pain were 



MIND 139 

not delusion it would be with us always — 
but it is only an experience — one of the 
many lessons which the mind encounters in 
its work of manifestation — while the effect 
of all these experiences is according to our 
realization and consequent soul impression. 

How beautifully in the light of Truth does 
everything conform ! When you become con- 
scious of yourself, how real it all is — and 
when you are conscious of yourself, really 
recognize yourself, you have access to the 
Universal Mind, thus coming in touch with 
the fullness of all life. Recognition and 
Realization are necessary to the higher un- 
foldment. When you know yourself you are 
on intimate terms with all humanity on all 
planes of life. You know without objective 
study more than you could absorb in a life- 
time of intellectual development alone. 

Throw aside these delusions of inharmony 
and selfishness. Recognize the unlimited 



140 MENTAL HARMONY 

power within. Let the light of Truth shine 
into your mind and realize your greatness. 
As Emerson expresses it, "The creation of a 
thousands forests is in one acorn." The up- 
Iiftment of a thousand worlds may be in one 
mind. 

Let no man feel proud of his mental power. 
It belongs to all men, for he is nothing but 
what he draws from the Universal Source, 
and yet he is all because of his capacity of 
drawing all. It is when you realize this one- 
ness of all things, that the thought of the 
mind becomes the consciousness of the soul. 

• 

Now, the question is, what are you to do 
in order to become conscious, to awaken 
your mind to its true relation with and to 
the Universal subjective mind? Indeed, it 
is a question, because the power of the mind 
is so great that under proper training it be- 
comes fairly illuminous, no subject but what 






MIND 141 

comes under its comprehension; and then I 
hear you say, What do you mean by train- 
ing; what kind of training are you' speaking 
of; are we not always under training? Yes, 
there are many kinds of training, many 
methods of development, but there is only 
one way of unfolding the Spiritual nature 
and really illumining the mind, and that is 
by concentration united with consecration. 

Concentration alone is not sufficient. There 
are many intellectual geniuses who are spiri- 
tual idiots, who have gained much objective 
information by concentration of the mind, 
but the truth that I wish to impress in this 
very brief glimpse of the mind is, that in 
order to become the open sesame to the real 
and Eternal Knowledge, concentration must 
be united to its higher self-consecration. 

Do you realize in this training of the mind 
what a valuable quality the Imagination is? 
and notice how it is suppressed. A child 



142 MENTAL HARMONY 

comes to its mother with a startling tale of 
something he has just seen or done, and she 
is horrified; scolds him for imagining some- 
thing, worries because he prevaricates. The 
next time his beautiful vision comes he re- 
fuses to see; Mama says he mustn't. Dear, 
sweet Mama, do let your baby imagine all he 
wants to; go into his world with him and 
help him idealize all his fancies and then try 
for yourself. Concentrate upon your highest 
ideal — if it be a personality, draw his image 
before you; if it is the ideal of Truth, so 
much the better. Concentrate upon it. Hold 
the image in your mind and breathe deeply 
the inspiration of life you desire to attract; 
see what beautiful light will come to you. As 
the mind unfolds in this way the image-mak- 
ing faculty constantly increases, grows so 
strong that sometimes the images take ma- 
terial or, shall we say, ethereal form, and 
who that has had this experience will say 



MIND 143 

these images of the concentrated thought are 
not real! Believe me, in the culture of the 
soul, as well as of the mind, the imagina- 
tion plays a most important part, and the 
gift of imagination is one to be desired and 
appreciated. 

Just contemplate the wonderful power and 
scope of the human mind when it comes in 
touch with the Universal Mind; it knows 
not the limitations of time and space. Into 
the depths of the earth and into the immen- 
sity of the Heavens it can go in an instant 
of time. Back, mingling with past ages — 
onward, penetrating future mysteries, can it 
go, with marvelous rapidity. Is it surprising 
that we find it difficult to control this won- 
derful thing or even to comprehend it? 

There are people who ask — What is the 
use of all this analyzing the man? Does this 
have anything to do with our soul culture? 
We will see: Is not knowledge on all planes 



144 MENTAL HARMONY 

of great use? Certainly, to know the physi- 
cal body is most important in its care and 
in its training; why not even more so, to 
understand the mind and its relation to the 
body and to the soul? To be sure, you may 
say, no one understands these things. You 
cannot see them. Oh, my friends, it is in 
the consciousness of the soul that one really 
knows himself! The thought of the mind 
alone will never give you eternal knowledge; 
it must be raised into the higher recognition 
of itself until with the soul senses you per- 
ceive these things, not with the mental or 
physical senses. 

And how this question of terms does in- 
trude itself when we want to convey an idea, 
doesn't it? Somebody says, " Nothing is 
created, all is manifested/' Then, when we 
come to reason together we find this thought 
of manifestation and another of creation are 
one and the same. Again, we have this 



MIND 145 



thought of growth. We realize there is no 
growth — it is all manifestation, evolution, 
we say, for convenience; the tree grows 
when it is only bringing forth the life within, 
but we constantly use the word to express the 
idea of manifestation. The tree can only 
bring forth and attract from the soul of the 
universe what is within itself; it must mani- 
fest from within out — as is the case with all 
life. 

For convenience, again we will use the word 
"creation." Man creates himself, or call it 
evolution, if you like — the word is nothing, 
and the instrument he uses in creating him- 
self is the mind, for the mind's action, which 
is thought, is the dominant force of his life 
— and he creates himself and his conditions 
by the quality of his thought. 

Seemingly, in a degree, we are creatures of 
circumstances, but in reality we create our 
own lives, for there are no circumstances 



146 MENTAL HARMONY 

that cannot be overcome by conforming to 
the law in thought, word, and deed, and using 
common sense and reason in so doing. When 
I speak of the law, I always mean the law of 
harmony and love — the law that expresses 
the Christ principle and is nature's law. 
The word is greater than the deed, and the 
thought is greater than the word, because the 
thought must come before, and must control 
the word and the deed. There is no phase 
of charity so great as thinking charity, be- 
cause, if you think kindly and lovingly of 
everyone, the word and the deed must follow. 

What a wonderful realization it is and 
what a consciousness of the oneness of all 
humanity it gives us, to know that the mind 
of each human being has an influence upon 
every other human being, and what a re- 
sponsibility it is when we see that the in- 
fluence is in proportion to the connection one 



MIND 147 

has with the Universal Mind! When the 
objective Mind has no connection with the 
Subjective mind, as in the case of an idiot; 
or very slightly connected, as in the case of 
an insane person, that mind makes no impres- 
sion on the surrounding minds. But look 
at the man whose life has been one of con- 
scious concentration, and who has conse- 
quently strengthened not only his magnetic 
force, but his connection with the Universal 
Mind; that man's mind will sway audiences 
as his spoken words never could. If he is a 
writer, his readers will feel the vibrations of 
his thought force as he impresses through 
his pen his great power upon their minds. 

It is through the subjective mind that we 
really meet each other, not only our friends 
on this planet, but those in other realms and 
spheres. Every normal human being is con- 
nected with the subjective mind in a degree, 
or his objective mind would be unable to 



148 MENTAL HARMONY 

comprehend the meaning of anything the 
physical senses report to it, and it is to 
unite still more closely with the subjective 
mind that all this mental training is neces- 
sary. Therefore teach your truth-student to 
concentrate and you will do more for him 
than anything else you can do. One person 
is not any brighter than another; it is only 
that one has greater concentration developed 
than another. 

Have you not seen people who were seem- 
ingly what the world calls stupid, and who 
suddenly developed a certain genius and 
brilliancy that was remarkable? Those peo- 
ple simply became conscious of themselves. 
The key-note of their being is touched and 
they recognize themselves. Again, you see 
people who as children give promise of such 
wonderful things and who are quite common- 
place as they grow older. They have raised 
a barrier between themselves and the uni- 



MIND 149 

versal source of all knowledge, it may be by 
selfishness, or it may be by intellectual pride, 
or pride of wealth, but the light of true 
understanding has been obscured for a time. 

Thus we see that all men are equal, and 
each one has just the opportunity he needs 
for his unfoldment if he will only make use 
of it. Some people, however, consider their 
stepping stones as very great misfortunes. 
They resist instead of overcoming and mas- 
tering conditions, and after a lifetime of re- 
sistance and misunderstanding wonder why 
"life is a failure." 

A mind that is free from fear soon becomes 
one with the Universal and manifests its all- 
powerful qualities. Fear is the embodiment 
of every other evil, or so-called evil, under 
the sun. Fear is the greatest hindrance to 
spiritual unfoldment that there is; not only 
that, but it is the barrier between ourselves 
and success on all planes. 



150 MENTAL HARMONY 

In fact, fear is the one and only evil, the 
cause of all sickness and all sorrow. Free 
the mind from fear and the gates of Heaven 
will open to you. Sum it all up in these 
words: Fear is the one thing to be afraid of 
and must be cast out of the mind. 

Countless Universes exist, and these are 
arranged mechanically like the human body, 
the mind of all minds being the controlling 
power as the mind of man is the controlling 
power in his body. Each atom of the Uni- 
verse is dependent on every other atom, be- 
ing at the same time an individual atom; 
and so with man, each individual must, while 
seeking his own good at all times, in all 
places, in all situations, seek the good of 
the associated whole. That is your respon- 
sibility, and there is where you gain your 
life, by merging yourself into the whole, 
thus strengthening your own individuality 



MIND 151 



while helping all the world — nay, all the 
Universe. 

Behold, how clearly is revealed the mean- 
ing of the words, "Man, know thyself," in 
this study of the mind! The study of the 
subjective mind is an introspective study of 
self, unveiling the higher self, for in the sub- 
jective world everything is contained; and in 
the degree that we allow the higher self to 
manifest is every power in the being mani- 
fested. So that in reality only by recogniz- 
ing and thus comprehending and manifesting 
his perfection, his oneness with the Universal 
Harmony, can the man become master. 

Mind, as commonly understood, applies to 
the activities of the brain; in Sanscrit it is 
called Manas, the thinking principle of man. 
In the occult conception it is a vibration of 
spirit which manifests itself on the different 
planes of being by virtue of the unseen stra- 
tum of the Universe. It is one and a part 



152 MENTAL HARMONY 

of all, and we get as much and no more of 
this force as we are capable of using; conse- 
quently the more we cultivate the powers 
within and develop the individuality the 
more of this force becomes ours. 

The Universal Intelligence traveling along 
the Universal thought currents is the one 
Universal law, and "The law of the Lord 
is perfect." With that thought in the con- 
sciousness there will be no question of 
"breaking the law." You will realize that 
such a thing is impossible, and that any 
attempt at it breaks the man and not the 
law. 

How many times do we say Knowledge 
is power — Knowledge is strength — ay, 
Knowledge is eternal life, not intellectual 
information, but that Knowledge which is 
understanding that is Eternal life, and how 
beautiful it is to feel the pulsations of this 
life as the awakening is coming to human- 



MIND 153 



ity, and all men are seeing this light of 
truth. Even the daily papers and maga- 
zines are permeated by what is called the 
"new thought." Of course it is not the 
new thought, because Truth always has 
been, is, and ever shall be, but the old 
barriers are being destroyed, and men are 
recognizing themselves as never before. 

A human being is the greatest magnet in 
'the Universe, and from the brain radiates 
a force which you can send where you please, 
as soon as you really understand you have 
such a force at your command. By generat- 
ing this thought force in love, and realizing 
that in every other man is this same power, 
this same love principle, you establish a 
magnetic chain between you, thus giving him 
what you have for him and receiving in like 
manner. You have within yourself, then, 
magnetism sufficient to draw to yourself all 
that you need from out the Universe — all 



154 MENTAL HARMONY 

that you desire, and all that you demand, 
but there must be no unbelief; simply have 
perfect faith that your requirements will be 
fulfilled. 

Truth is infinite and can never be ex- 
hausted. What a glorious realization it is 
that we are coming into the Consciousness 
of our oneness not only with each other but 
with Universal Truth. 



SELF-RELIANCE 



/ may build my life in the shadow 
Of another's grand free thought, 

And in his strength I may hide myself 
And value my power as naught. 

But my work shall not be enduring 

And I shall not be free, 
Until I myself am true to myself 

And value the power in me. 




SELF-RELIANCE 

NCE there was a dear baby girl; 
you would say possibly that she 
was spoiled, but I doubt if you can 
spoil a child unless you suppress it or abuse 
it, and this child was certainly neither sup- 
pressed nor abused. One day her clear-eyed 
mother perceived that the I of the child was 
becoming too pronounced, so she said to the 
important tot: "Dear Heart! does it ever 
occur to you that every other child in the 
world is of just as great importance as you 
are; that in her world your little playmate 
is the center just as you are the center in 
yours? Every soul is the center of its Uni- 
verse, and from that center must its life 
proceed." Sweet, astonished blue eyes! How 
wide they opened, and how the dimpled chin 



158 MENTAL HARMONY 

trembled as the child heart responded to the 
great truth, and slowly and surely did the 
mind comprehend what the soul perceived, 
and the self became polarized in that new 
light. 

Blessed was that child who learned her 
lesson then, and blessed indeed is the human 
being who recognizes his position in the 
Universe and polarizes himself accordingly, 
for in polarization is the only strength. 

Oh, Man! what is the self, this mighty 
power within which is so little understood 
and yet which must become the Divine indi- 
vidual? We are taught by the Masters, 
"Thou shouldst strive to raise the self by 
the self; self is the friend of self, and self in 
like manner is the enemy of self." Such a 
world of inspiration in those few words! 
Think deeply. Concentrate upon them and 
see what light will come to you in under- 
standing this mighty self and in realizing 



SELF-RELIANCE 159 

the sense of being — of being one with all 
life. 

Oh, my friends, the true growth is from 
within outward. The inner man is the self, 
and to the inner man we look for this ex- 
pression of life which raises the vibration of 
selfishness to the higher vibration of selfless- 
ness. So much has been written in the 
so-called "new thought" journals on the sub- 
ject of Being and affirming, etc., seemingly 
such a useless jargon of words that one 
wants to dip his pen in fire and impress in 
words of flame this Knowledge which is in 
very truth Everlasting life. 

The real life principle within is the true 
Ego, and the difference in its vibration makes 
the difference between the / and the you. 
You .must manifest this life principle; you 
must understand it because you create your- 
self by its action. On you and you alone 
rests the responsibility of your evolution. 



160 MENTAL HARMONY 

No background or prop of organization will 
help you. Alone you must understand — 
one with all men, and yet alone. 

You think it is hard? No, it is glorious. 
Cast off the scales from the eyes, throw out 
the delusions of personality. You never will 
know the ecstasy of love until you recognize 
that one human soul is no more to you than 
another, until you perceive the Divine Indi- 
vidual in all men; feeling the strength of 
the "I am" within — knowing that "I am 
the way, the truth, and the life." Glorious 
truth! Radiant revelation to the soul! 

What are we on this planet for, anyway, 
but to realize the self, to obtain a conscious 
knowledge of the self, and to make subjec- 
tive thought objective deed? What is the 
use of knowledge or of anything else if you 
cannot make it practical? It is all very well 
to tell people about these realities of life, 
but unless you can make them plain and 



SELF-RELIANCE 161 

prove the truth of them you might just as 
well stop talking about it. 

Now, right here let me tell you something. 
Never accept anything because somebody 
says so, or because it is in some book. If 
you find a statement in the Bible itself that 
is not reasonable to you, do not accept it 
until it proves itself to be true. Depend 
on your own consciousness to guide you, not 
somebody else's understanding. There are 
the two ends of the pole, repulsion and at- 
traction, and you and you alone can find 
the right polarization. 

As for the Bible, it is such a wonderful, 
such a magic book that only the man shorn 
of his delusions can comprehend it. It is not 
written for the man who thinks he knows, 
but for the man who knows or who desires 
to know. 

Remember this: Nature always works in- 
telligently, and there is an interior life ele- 



1 62 MENTAL HARMONY 

ment in all men and in all systems. The 
Subjective mind never makes mistakes and 
never fails. It is all there. The universal 
life principle is in all things; all strength is 
ours if we will only recognize our own. 

Strength — what a grand word it is! What 
a vibration of power it embodies! I love to 
say it aloud, to draw it into the innermost 
depths of my being and say " I am strength." 
It helps me to become this strength that I 
love. Weakness is the cause of all inhar- 
mony; strength is harmony itself. 

All virtue has strength for its foundation. 
Did you ever see a generous man who had 
not strength of pocket-book to be generous 
with? Of course all financially strong men 
are not generous. All strong people do not 
recognize their responsibility, but the great- 
est force to be desired in the world is strength 
— physical, financial, mental, and spiritual 
strength. 



SELF-RELIANCE 163 

Instead of anxiously desiring wealth, suc- 
cess, fame, etc., wouldn't it be a good idea to 
go to work to cultivate the strength that 
will enable you to have anything and every- 
thing you require? Anxiety is never strong; 
emotion is always weak. The silent power is 
the great power. 

When you realize what the self is, its power 
and its possibilities, you see that by cultivat- 
ing the strength of the self, that quality 
which we know as self-reliance, we do more 
for ourselves than in any other way. Just 
think how some teachers tell us we must kill 
out the self! What for, Pd like to know? 
Are we not distinctly taught in the com- 
mandment of the Most High, "Thou shalt 
not kill?" and even if we had no higher teach- 
ing on that subject, does not our common 
sense and reason teach us that the self is to 
be cultivated and strengthened, and above all 
comprehended? Ah! there is the keynote, 



1 64 MENTAL HARMONY 

Understanding. Surely we do not destroy 
what we know, for what we truly know we 
love, do we not? We see beyond the crusts 
of the outer self into the depths of the inner 
self, and then we love the beautiful soul we 
perceive within. 

No, we must not destroy anything. Over- 
come? Yes. Raise the vibrations? Cer- 
tainly, but destroy, never. You will destroy 
the body as well as the self if you attempt to 
kill out that which is within. Suppose you 
have a violent temper. Don't imagine for 
one minute that it should be killed or de- 
stroyed. Dear me, a temper is one of the 
most valuable forces in the world if rightly 
directed. Raise the vibrations of that tem- 
per until it becomes the power behind the 
throne — - a strong, sure life force within. 
What would your engine be without the 
steam in its body? But if the steam is mis- 
directed, not controlled, the engine is apt to 



SELF-RELIANCE 165 

be disintegrated and the steam to become 
a wasted force. It is so with any quality. 
It is yours to make the highest use of and 
not to scatter and waste. 

Some one of the modern writers has said 
that it is a good thing to take a day off and 
get acquainted with yourself, and it is excel- 
lent advice. Look within, and what do you 
see? Do you find a loving soul that knows 
its own strength and realizes its possibilities, 
or do you find something that fears, thus 
attracting weakness on all planes? Are you 
living so that you cultivate this fear, thereby 
disintegrating your body and enervating your 
condition of life, or are you cultivating self- 
reliance, courage, and strength? Beloved 
Sisters! who is master, you or Fashion? Are 
you free to wear what is harmonious to you, 
to live your own life according to the re- 
quirements of your experience, or must you 
pause for fear — they might say something. 



1 66 MENTAL HARMONY 

A sweet woman said to me not long ago that 
she couldn't live in a certain neighborhood 
because she had to do her own housework, 
and the people in that neighborhood would 
look down on her. Dear, dear Sister, your 
home is your glory. Blessed is that woman 
who is privileged to do her own housework 
and keep her home sacred. Oh, the pity of 
it! that such conditions can be wherein we 
cannot live our own lives for the fear of what 
some one might say. 

To be sure, it requires strength in a degree 
to overlook the opinion of the world, but 
that is what we are talking about — self- 
reliance. As soon as you commence to live 
your own life, and to depend upon yourself 
instead of what the world says, you will have 
many occasions to forgive and overlook the 
apparent cruelty of the world. Be true to 
yourself and the highest ideals of your soul, 
and when your strength is proved, and you 



SELF-RELIANCE 167 

go on in self-reliance and perfect poise, the 
first thing you know this blundering old 
world will change its attitude and follow you. 
It took the world several years to appreciate 
Columbus, but he knew, and the opinion of 
the world was nothing to him. 

Strength will accomplish anything. The 
survival of the fittest is and ever has been 
the law; all nature and all life prove it. 
It rests with us to see that the fittest is 
the Spiritual part of ourselves and that 
we attract strength to the higher self, thus 
overcoming and raising the self to the high 
vibration of selflessness. 

Let us train this self to be the thing we 
desire, and then we shall have no difficulty 
in attracting our own. Students have said 
to me, "My own shall come to me," as 
though it were a future reward that would 
swoop like some great bird down on their 
heads. Bless you, dear heart, "your own" 



1 68 MENTAL HARMONY 

is here right now, and if you don't like it, 
change it. It all rests with you. Let me 
tell you something. YouVe~got to become sl 
thing before you can have it. You will at- 
tract to yourself what you really are, and if 
you are cultivating the lower vibrations of 
your being, becoming selfish, cruel, stingy, 
what do you expect? No matter what you 
expect you will get just what you are, and 
the destructive and disintegrating forces will 
be yours. 

On the other hand, if you vibrate in the 
law of love and become /i/e, you will attract 
and radiate that which you are. Can you 
imagine a disintegrating force entering into 
that being which is life itself? Can you con- 
ceive of harm coming to a man who is love? 
Suppose the world does turn and rend him. 
Is he not deathless from the strength of his 
love? 

Do you know we lose half the delights of 



SELF-RELIANCE 169 

our sojourn here by always depending on 
something or somebody? How many of us, 
in these days of automatic conveyances, 
street cars, and carriages, enjoy the good long 
walk? It is so easy to jump on a car — 
saves time, too; queer, isn't it, how we have 
to save time when there is no end or begin- 
ning to time? We have to be hurried off this 
planet after a sojourn of fifty or sixty years 
upon it just because other people have done 
so, when we can stay as long as we please if 
we only think so. 

How much closer one comes to nature if 
he lays aside his watch and all the contriv- 
ances for making his life artificial and lives 
close to Mother Earth for a time. Depend 
upon yourself; surprise your limbs by giving 
them a little exercise for a change. Sur- 
prise your memory by depending on it in- 
stead of carrying a pencil and tablet in your 
pocket to remind you when it is time to keep 



170 MENTAL HARMONY 

your engagements. Wouldn't it be rather 
nice not to have any engagements and be 
free for a time? But dear me! such ignoring 
of modern conventionality is hardly to be 
contemplated. We rise by the clock, we 
eat by the clock, we live, move, and have 
our being by the clock; we even take our 
drugs by the clock. No wonder the self 
loses its strength and becomes weak and 
afraid. 

Show me the man who depends on him- 
self, who knows himself truly and relies on 
that knowledge, and I will show you the 
master mind. For in knowledge of self is 
life eternal. 

; In the higher life there is no such thing 
as ambition for self. The object of every 
student of truth is to obtain knowledge in 
order to be of greater use to his fellow-man. 
No matter what ambition he may have had 
to start with, when the student recognizes 



SELF-RELIANCE 171 

himself he polarizes himself on the plane of 
common sense and goes to work. That is 
the way. Do something for somebody else, 
and forget the personal / for a time. In 
becoming self-reliant you don't want to de- 
pend on the false self — that means what 
you call conceit. You must depend on the 
real self; then you make no mistakes. 

It is unnecessary for a man to go off into 
the wilderness to find his work on Spiritual 
lines. Just as fast as you are ready your 
work will appear. Neither is it necessary 
to go one step out of the way to find it. If 
your work happens to be washing dishes, do 
it the very best you know how; make it 
a beautiful thing, and something more con- 
genial may soon be brought to you. 

I know a woman who left her home and 
baby in order to fill an " equal sphere with 
her husband." I never yet saw a man who 
was equal to harmonizing a baby and a 



172 MENTAL HARMONY 

home. Realize the importance of your 
work, and don't imagine it is commonplace 
just because that is the world's present 
opinion. 

Work is the most beautiful thing in the 
world. We are all servants, or ought to be, 
for there is nothing so deplorable in the world 
as having nothing definite to do. The great- 
est glory in the world is to be privileged to 
serve others. Pity that poor, ignorant soul 
who regards her "servants" as different flesh 
from her own, and who feels that work is 
beneath her. Her chief work in life is to 
delude herself, and she misses the cream of 
life itself in her struggle for delusions. 

The greatest joy of life is serving. Give 
of your love; give of your strength. No man 
is poor while he has the power within him- 
self to be anything he desires. Rely upon 
yourself and the inner voice, and you will 
soon know the way. 



SELF-RELIANCE 173 

Isn't it beautiful to know that every step 
we take onward helps everybody else — to 
know that every time you help yourself you 
are helping all the world, and embodying the 
grand teaching of Jesus, "If I be lifted up, 
I lift all men with me"? 

Remember that affirmations amount to 
nothing unless you, in truth, embody the 
affirmation. Imagine a man claiming "I am 
God" when he is living in the thought of how 
he can accumulate more money than he has 
any use for. It is noticeable that most of 
such people seem to have a fear that the 
Lord's storehouse will give out, and they 
feather their nests most luxuriously, and de- 
mand millions at a time. Seems to me if I 
had faith that the supply was equal to the de- 
mand and that all was mine for the asking, 
I wouldn't want such a lot all at once, nor 
make people pay such enormous and rigid 
prices for a Truth which is free. I would 



174 MENTAL HARMONY 

rather trust in the truth of my teachings, 
knowing that when I need it the money or 
the supply must come. 

Imagine a man insisting "I am life" when 
he ate for his dinner the body of a creature 
that was filled with conscious pulsations of 
a life that is one with his own! Was not 
that creature permeated with fear when the 
life was rudely torn from it, and is not the 
man absorbing those vibrations of fear by 
taking them into his organism? 

I know it doesn't sound pretty. Truth 
frequently is not pleasant; in fact, it never 
is unless you are one with it; but even if 
you don't like it, be strong and self-reliant 
enough to think about it and know for your- 
self whether it is truth or not. The truth is 
that the only thing you can claim as your 
own is what you become, not what you de- 
lude yourself into thinking is your own, but 
you yourself. 



SELF-RELIANCE 173 

I do not mean to ignore the use of affirma- 
tions. In a degree they assist in the cultiva- 
tion of self, in the strengthening process. 
We all know how we can polarize the mind 
when we are disturbed by the spoken affirma- 
tion, but again we can most wofully delude 
ourselves by affirmations which are not true. 
I can deny a physical inharmony by declar- 
ing "I am perfect health" until it separates 
the body from me and I die, as they say. I 
can also declare I am ill until I am com- 
pletely inharmonized whether there was any 
foundation for it or not. 

There is a great deal more to the science 
of healing than declaring or denying or 
affirming. They certainly help to strengthen, 
that is all. The greater the strength, the 
greater the power of the self, the more you 
can overcome. You can overcome yourself 
in regard to the heat, for instance. It re- 
quires but little strength to place yourself 



176 MENTAL HARMONY 

in the attitude where you do not suffer from 
the ordinary heat of summer; but it requires 
great strength to overcome yourself so that 
you do not suffer if you place your hand on 
a red-hot iron. 

The great Truth to be impressed is this: 
Know the self first, then strengthen and rely- 
on the self, and finally become the Divine Self. 

Right here we must consider the question 
of the influence of others upon us. Be strong 
in your discrimination of the truth. Let no 
other mind dominate your thought. Be 
grand enough to recognize your delusions 
when once they are revealed to you, but 
know things for yourself and not because 
somebody says so. You can absorb some- 
thing from everyone, but do not accept 
anything because I say so or some great 
teacher or writer has expressed it, but be- 
cause you perceive it to be true. 

The law of the Lord is perfect, and when 



SELF-RELIANCE 177 

you conform to that law there is no danger 
of your scattering your forces. Really, it is 
most restful, and how anxiety disappears in 
the face of such a consciousness! You need 
have no care for the morrow if you cultivate 
the very highest of all things within yourself 
and rely upon yourself. The Lord is mind- 
ful of his own — that is, the law protects 
those who are one with it. "The lily of the 
field" looks up in loving faith and all its 
wants are intelligently supplied. Truly it 
"rests in the Lord" — relies upon the law 
of its own being. 

Ah! yes, the most difficult thing for strug- 
gling humanity to learn is the simplest thing 
in the world. Let go. Stop being anxiety 
and be peace and strength for a while instead. 

As we go on concentrating on self and 
self-reliance, do we not see how disastrous 
it would be to "kill out" the self, when 
upon the self and the strength of self de- 



178 MENTAL HARMONY 

pends all that we are? It is you yourself, 
and you must become the spirit and the life 
by knowing and raising the vibration of self. 
You do not believe anything unless you live 
it. There is the knowledge of the intellect 
and the knowledge of the soul, and it is the 
soul knowledge that is meant when the Mas- 
ter says that "To know is to have eternal 
Iife.^ 

Be true to the self and all men will be true 
to you. The only person whose respect it is 
absolutely necessary for you to have is your 
own. What other people think of you is of 
but slight import compared with what you 
think of yourself. Cultivate the soil of your 
own inner garden and see that its plants do 
not die for want of care. The seed that is 
sown in your inner consciousness will deter- 
mine the fruit of your life's expression. 

If man would but look to the inner Temple 
of his soul for light and understanding rather 



SELF-RELIANCE 179 

than to the delusions of the outside world, 
how different it all would be! He would 
soon learn to depend on himself, would soon 
become that which the Master Truth requires. 
True growth is from the inside out. The 
temporary props of churches and organiza- 
tions are useful just as is the mother's guid- 
ing hand to the child until the little feet are 
strong enough to stand alone, but the time 
comes when the baby is gone, the man stands 
alone in the world; yes, alone, yet strong 
in the consciousness of his own strength. 

How majestic in its solemn import is the 
life when the awakening of the spirit has 
come. How strong and serene in its sense 
of security is that soul which recognizes 
and knows the law of its own divine being. 
Then, indeed, is he ready for the awaken- 
ing in other spheres. The diver in the 
ocean's mysteries only remains there until 
he has found his treasure. He is sustained 



180 MENTAL HARMONY 

in his research by the air he receives from 
above. How he rejoices to return to that 
atmosphere which is his life! Do you not 
think when the man has found his treasure 
that he also will rejoice to return to that 
atmosphere of love which is his life? 

Watch and Pray. Student of Truth, you 
must watch your thoughts diligently, always 
striving to raise the vibrations and create 
purer atmospheres of love and tenderness for 
all things. The Kingdom within yields to 
prayer and concentration. It is said that 
to labor is to pray, to ask is to receive, and 
to knock is to have opened, but not without 
the effort and action of the seeker. Your 
treasure is within yourself. When the recog- 
nition of self comes to the soul the Divine 
Spirit enlightens and instructs, illuminating 
and revealing the treasure within. 



THE IDEA 



One day I was longing and longing 

For something so jar away 
That my heart seemed weary to breaking, 

And the sun had gone from the day. 

When a breezy idea came ablowing 

From out the dimming sky, 
And life was filled with new glory 

As we blended, my idea and I. 




THE IDEA 

JNCE upon a time there was a man 
who had an idea. 
This man had not only welcomed 
this crude bit of a formulated thought into 
his consciousness, but having given it place 
in his attention, he also gave it nourishment 
and care. 

Now you may think it is the usual thing 
for a human creature to welcome an idea 
which desires lodgment in his center, but it 
is a most uncommon happening; partly be- 
cause human folks are so absorbed with ad- 
miration of themselves that there is little 
place for a genuine idea and partly because 
they have accommodated so many blase 
opinions and crusted creeds that they are 
suffering from brain atrophication and are 
unequal to mentally digesting the alive idea. 



1 84 MENTAL HARMONY 

When the idea first made itself known to 
the man, he brushed it aside, — "Too start- 
ling/' said he, "impossible, go away." 

But the idea accumulated another wave of 
insistent vigor, and having found a tiny open- 
ing of interest in the man's mind and having 
recognized a quality which might eventually 
mean love, it returned and gently, ever so 
gently, forced its way into the center which 
before had declared it impossible. 

Which proves, of course, that the idea was 
constructive, — otherwise it would not have 
been sufficiently wise to use gentleness in 
entering a home center which was the abid- 
ing place of love. 

Having entered the second time into the 
man's life center and been allowed to remain 
long enough to make a definite impression* 
the idea, even more gently, reached out to 
the love brain of the m&n and, having touched 
it and found therein the forces of living power, 






THE IDEA 185 



it soon became aware of the sweet warm glow 
of recognition from the human creature which 
was the answer to its need, for this idea de- 
sired to manifest in living accomplishment 
in the human realm. 

It is a wonderful thing to really possess 
a constructive idea and it is a wonderful 
process and a wonderful experience which 
strengthens and develops it — but sometimes 
the possessor of any great treasure be- 
comes unbalanced in his vision concerning 
it, thereby missing the accuracy of his esti- 
mate regarding its value, and as every con- 
dition in life is relative and all value is 
relative, his process of development may be 
delayed by his own lack of polarization. 
? I When this man realized that an idea had 
entered into his heart center, that his wisdom 
had retained it, and that his love was giving 
it living energy, a mighty enthusiasm took 
possession of him, and in his enthusiasm he 



1 86 MENTAL HARMONY 

quite forgot all prior claim, forgot there was 
other work yet unfinished in his part of life, 
forgot that he had intended his beautiful 
idea to be a divinely impersonal creation in 
a divinely impersonal work, and behold a 
great darkness came over the earth for the 
man who was not yet equal to fulfil the 
thing he had attracted and claimed. 

What a glorious day it will be when hu- 
man children can hold personality sufficiently 
steady, sufficiently in abeyance, to permit 
the God idea to enter in, and to allow 
themselves to become attuned to the divine 
thought and to understand the divine in- 
tention. 

Again the man awoke to the beauty of his 
idea, again he turned the love light toward 
it, and again he centered his attention upon 
it, but this time with a broader vision — 
he now saw it as a universal idea desiring 
and utilizing his human consciousness for 



THE IDEA 187 



an avenue, as it were, whereby the idea could 
be made manifest in the human realm. 

For there is always the accurate process 
— line upon line and angle meeting angle in 
the manifestation of life through any idea 
upon any plane or in any realm. 

So he related himself to the idea from the 
angle of a broader vision, and instead of 
using it for personal power and for sense 
gratification and money accumulation, he 
balanced it with intelligence, which being a 
universal quality, does not degrade the uni- 
versal forces. 

And as the idea grew in the polarized 
strength of intelligence, the man grew with 
it, for his intelligence had equalized and bal- 
anced his personality with his divinity and 
he was perceiving the God of himself unit- 
ing with the God of the whole. 

Verily it is only a vitalized idea which can 
exclude the personal self long enough to 



1 88 MENTAL HARMONY 

allow the diviner self to dominate, for where 
there is in the human creature a riot of self- 
ishness and greed and confused opinion, 
there is apparently ' such a distortion of 
intelligence that it takes the form of im- 
becility. 

Also is it a fact that an idea cherished in 
love and balanced in wisdom has the living 
power of manifesting in form, and he who 
attracts the idea into his human conscious- 
ness assumes a responsibility which requires 
the intelligent operation of wisdom and love 
as do all possessions which are worthy of the 
attention of the human creature. 

In the fuller and freer realization of this 
idea, it was but natural that the man should 
feel the urge to express it, and in the ex- 
pression came a response from other men, 
so there was co-operation and appreciation 
from other minds and therein the idea also 
quite naturally, through human consciousness, 



THE IDEA 189 



strengthened and developed, until that which 
had at first been merely a dawning spark, a 
faint suggestion of a mighty idea, had ac- 
tually taken form and was manifesting its 
marvelous beauty and strength for the up- 
lifting of the whole human race. 

• 
While all students of the finer forces of 
nature realize that there is but one mind, 
they also know that there are infinite por- 
tions of that one great mind, but they do not 
always perceive that in all of the manifes- 
tations of the pure spirit substance through 
this medium of the mind, it requires a por- 
tion of this infinite mind which has individ- 
ualized itself sufficiently to express human 
intelligence, to attract to the human realm 
any other element or quality or force which 
idealizes itself in formulated thought, and 
which therein desires to express upon the 
human plane. 



1 90 MENTAL HARMONY 

Therefore it takes a human creature, made 
manifest in the image of God and therefore 
a universal creature, to attract an idea from 
another realm and to develop it with love 
and wisdom until it has sufficient power to 
express itself and to manifest itself in the 
earth realm. 

It requires a definite concentrated force 
to reach out into the infinite and select an 
idea and it also requires attention and inten- 
tion to hold it and nourish it and use it when 
once you have attracted it. 

How many times have you seen people who 
were expressing their lives in what is called 
failure, because they had not sufficient energy 
(some folks call it grit) to hold and develop 
their own idea. 

To be sure there are ever so many beings 
in human form on the earth home who are 
such strangers to the thought realm that 
they are mere tools in the hands of the few 



THE IDEA 191 



who really do use their intelligence and con- 
trol their thought, but we are dealing with 
people who are alive and who really desire 
and intend to live eternally in some part of 
God's realm and in some one of His many 
mansions. 

The man with an idea is he who overcomes 
his problem; he masters his immediate scheme 
although he may attract a more difficult one, 
because an alive idea never rests, it develops 
a different line of action with every different 
opportunity and increases its power with 
action and expression; indeed a well-devel- 
oped idea penetrates every phase of a human 
life and attracts to its abiding place other, 
if less developed, ideas which, when they are 
harmonious to its life activity, are added to 
its use. 

An alive idea is always constructive, al- 
though it may enter a realm of confusion 
which will not entertain it, and in expel- 



192 MENTAL HARMONY 

ling it there may be generated a disturbing 
unrest which bears the appearance of "evil/ 5 
as it is called. 

It requires the forces of construction to 
develop an idea, for only in love and wisdom 
can life become manifest, and an idea is life 
demanding manifestation. 

An idea is the centered, formulated thought 
seeking for the form and place of expression, 
while a thought may not necessarily be more 
than a passing wave of vibratory force, un- 
imaged and uncentered. 

An idea demands attention and creates 
intention; it may fairly obsess the mind 
which gives it place or it may be controlled 
by the man whose part of the infinite mind 
has given it opportunity and power. 

The man who selects his own ideas and 
who develops them and controls them is 
master of his part of life, — because it is the . 
idea which manifests in the world and ideas 



THE IDEA 193 



rule the world, and whoever controls the idea 
or many ideas naturally controls as much of 
the world as is mastered by his idea. 

So it behooves the human child to think 
himself into the realm of intelligence, that he 
may understand the selection and the de- 
velopment of his idea according to the qual- 
ity of life which he may desire to express. 

Because as the man thinks himself into 
living, so will he breath himself into becom- 
ing, for he himself is master of his part of life. 



AFTERWORD 

The last word has never been spoken. 

Always and always is humanity moving onward and 
always and always are advancing souls leaping 
beyond their race and calling to them the newer 
cry of the enlarging truth vision; and then each 
and every alive entity moves on and then there is 
the universal uplift which is the inevitable response 
to the individual uplift. 

Because never was one soul lifted up that all life was not 
thereby strengthened. 



Blessed is the soul who has sufficient force to think him- 
self into a higher and freer and finer point of view. 

Then he has the truth realization concerning his fellow- 
men which is that whatever we may prefer to think 
about it, every human creature is a part of every 
other human creature formed in the image of an infi- 
nitely alive, divinely expressed Being who breathes 
into the human children His own vitalizing soul self. 



AFTERWORD 195 



Blessed is the soul who has the courage of his own point 
of view and who lives his part of life therefrom. 

Then he knows that it is his divine privilege to live that 
part of life which is bis own and he falters not in 
his purpose because of the opinions of men. 

Blessed is the soul who is true to his own soul desire. 

Then he attracts to himself the opulence of health and 
wealth and love, and behold, — he has added unto 
himself the mighty attribute of mental harmony. 



It is for you and for me to build our life structures upon 
the rock of our own harmonious thought. 

Verily, it is the rock of enduring power and everlasting 
strength. 



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